Catanzaro Contemporanea: Art as a driver of development
The first weekend in July saw the first edition of the event with quality exhibitions and initiatives. An opportunity for visibility for the area and to find new meanings
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Key points
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Anna Cataneo is better known in contemporary art circles as Anna Perrella, her husband is Gianluca Perrella, a notary public in Catanzaro; together they meet a little bit everywhere between fairs, exhibitions and biennials, and their collection ranges from Arte Povera to Roman Pop Art to young emerging Italian artists of whom they are among the few and most ardent supporters. But let us forget her husband's surname for once. Anna has decided to abandon the luxuries and idleness of the collector on the move and to commit herself, together with other valiant people, to bringing contemporary art to her city, which is by far the most strenuous activity. In a way, this is the incipit of Catanzaro Contemporanea, an art event staged from 4 to 6 July. Prominent among the willing were the figures of Francesco Vaccaro curator of the project, who returned to Calabria after a couple of decades elsewhere, Mara Varia and Ester Pontoriero, both architects and very involved in the thousands of organisational aspects required by an event of this kind.
Exhibition
.The focal point of Catanzaro Contemporanea is an exhibition of video art, which can be visited free of charge until the end of the month, curated by Claudio Libero Pisano, 'Vidimu', let us see, in the local dialect, an exhibition involving eight female artists who are Italian or linked to our country. Sonia Andreasano in her video 'Barcode' stages the suspension between freedom and constraint that we have all experienced during the lockdown, between 2,000 and 20,000 euros its quotations, Fiamma Montezemolo takes us on a very intimate journey with the video 'tra un tremore e l'altro' ('Between one tremor and another'). the one linked to her father's photographic memories of which she somehow reconstructs the memory undermined by Alzheimer's, represented by Magazzino reaches quotations of €25,000. Iulia Ghita is equally intimate and the protagonist of her work "MAL_shore" is her 8-year-old son whom she follows with her camera on a walk of initiatory value (2,500 the price, edition of 3). In the video by Bruna Esposito, on the other hand, there is a poetic and disorienting translation of Giacomo Leopardi's Infinito recited in sign language, the works of the Roman artist represented by Wizard Gallery are on sale at a very wide price range with historical works reaching 125,000 euros.
Catanzaro Contemporanea also offered screenings of art films under the Artecinema umbrella, an initiative conceived by Laura Trisorio in Naples and successfully exported here: there were numerous conversations with leading figures from the art world such as the curator of the Cartier Foundation Michela Alessandrini and the director of the GAM in Torino Chiara Bertola.
Artists and Collectors
However, Calabria's capital is not a city untouched by contemporary art and in the Biodiversity Park, Unlimited format sculptures by various artists including Antony Gormley, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mimmo Paladino have been on display for the past 20 years, a tourist asset for the city but also an economic one given the market explosion of the aforementioned artists.
The budget for Catanzaro Art Week was covered thanks to the support of private individuals and companies as well as the support of the Catanzaro City Council, with its very active culture councillor Donatella Monteverdi. Many well-known collectors visited over the weekend, some in town for the first time, including Valentina Impallomeni, from Rome, who said: "it was an elegant and simple experience, surprising and satisfying, a tribute to art in all its forms in a warm and welcoming setting".
