BAW Bolzano Art Weeks, art occupies the city
The fifth edition closed: the protagonist is nature and its regenerative power. Creativity as a tool for territorial cohesion and development meets new social practices and the public
A Bolzano da qualunque parte si guardi, si vedono un susseguirsi di montagne che incoronano la città. Montagne ancora verdeggianti in attesa che l’autunno si faccia più insistente. Una natura incombente, pronta a riprendersi i suoi spazi, momentaneamente occupati dagli uomini. E proprio la natura ha invaso anche la quinta edizione di BAW Bolzano Art Weeks intitolata «Remapping Land/Marks». BAW è nata da un’idea di Nina Stricker ed è organizzata da Cooperativa 19 in collaborazione con Südtiroler Künstlerbund e LanaLive-Südtirol Kultur, ed unisce oltre 100 partner che a loro volta propongono eventi, mostre, performance molti dei quali con riferimenti al mondo naturale. Questo grande festival collettivo e non gerarchico dura una decina di giorni, quest’anno dal 3 al 12 ottobre.
Some of the places 'occupied' by BAW
NOI Techpark, a technology centre that also serves as an incubator for start-ups, is a South Tyrolean flagship on which many hopes are pinned. For the occasion, it hosted the exhibition 'reginae' by Martina Fontana and curated by Simone Sensi: a series of giant beehives invading the entrance hall of NOI to symbolise the strength and importance of the community. Each work is made of muskin, an ecological skin obtained from mushrooms, and is priced at 3,000 euro. In general, there are many initiatives at NOI related to contemporary art, in the awareness that technological and cultural development must go hand in hand.
Werk 3 is an independent space that occasionally opens to the public, where a disused hydroelectric power station once stood, and on the occasion of BAW hosts the exhibition "Strange Pianos" by the artist Jacopo Mazzonelli and pianist Eleonora Wegher. A series of very unusual keyboard instruments are on display: intonating typewriters, toy-pianos, finger gyms and the heavenly-sounding dulcitone; sometimes built and deconstructed by the artist himself. Outside the space organ pipes transmit the music that is played inside by the instruments, thus merging with the sounds of nature such as those of the river below. Mazzonelli is offered by the Studio G7 gallery with a price range of 4,000 to 40,000 euros.
Before the weeds arrive, the artist Barbara Prenka has 'occupied' the space of a former restaurant right on platform 1 of Bolzano station. A large installation, a three-dimensional blanket that mixes painting and sculpture and on which is embroidered a sentence with poetic echoes, Prenka's prices range from 900 to 13,000 euro. The work was created during a residency at Lottozero, a creative centre in Prato that focuses on textile and design research, founded by sisters Arianna and Tessa Moroder, who come from Bolzano.
These are just a few of the places hybridised by art during BAW, but many others are also worth a visit, such as the splendid Garden of the Hotel Laurin, which hosted an installation by Nadia Tamanini and Francesco Minà, the result of an on-site performance, or the Floricultura Gärtnerei Schullian, where Alessia Carbonara, Annalisa Lenzi and Stefania Rossi, works that also speak of how traumatic the relationship between man and nature can be.
