LANDSCAPE WITH ARTIST

NARI WARD AND 7 ARTISTS FROM S.A.C.S. ARCHIVE FOR A LABORATORY OF IDEAS

3–9 June 2013 the US artist Nari Ward (1963, St. Andrews, Jamaica. Lives and works in a New York), at present in residence at the American Academy in Rome, will spend a week together with 7 artists from S.A.C.S. (Sportello per l’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia) at the Antonello Colonna Resort in Valle Fredda. A collective residence conceived as a laboratory of ideas to construct a show to be held in Rome in late fall.

The Valle Fredda Resort, centre of interaction between nature, architecture, and art, is located in a most evocative area: the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia, in Palestrina, a few kilometres away, and an extraordinary landscape all around, that lush countryside, destination of the Grand Tour and inspiration of an important chapter in the history of Roman landscape painting in the 18th and 19th centuries. The project has two phases: one, creative “isolation” and discussion, far from the metropolitan rhythms, characterized by sharing and conviviality; the other, in later months, the production of works for the show.

The artists S.A.C.S. has chosen for this project are: /barbaragurrieri/group, Giuseppe Buzzotta, Gabriella Ciancimino, Silvia Giambrone, Giuseppe Lana, Filippo Leonardi, and Concetta Modica. Nari Ward will dialogue with them as guest artist and guest curator, guiding the laboratory of ideas beginning with some thematic points: from the relation between nature, culture, and landscape, to the system of biodiversity and biodynamic agriculture, to the peculiar dynamics of the community dimension.

A residence, that proposed for the S.A.C.S. artists, articulated departing from specific principles of sharing, but the ultimate goal is about the free exchange of ideas and the recovery of a design aspect of the work from a process of collective elaboration. The idea of sharing will also be extended to a series of guests, called to participate in campus life, taking part in encounters and moments of conviviality around a table; in particular, some representatives of the Roman artistic scene will be invited to the evenings at the estate and then to a final day dedicated to the presentation of the first results of the laboratory.

The laboratory/residence is part of the activities of Riso – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia directed by Sergio Aguglia, and derives from a collaboration between the curators of the S.A.C.S. committee and Ines Musumeci Greco, artistic responsible of the project on behalf of Antonello Colonna Arte. The project, product of an agreement between Riso and Antonello Colonna Arte, also takes advantage of the contribution of Banca Nuova for all the 2013 S.A.C.S. activities. Banca Nuova has started a fund for a low-interest loan to selected artists.

Thanks to this financing, it will be possible to advance them a share of the total that the Regional Administration will recognize for production of the works. There will also be other sponsors to cover part of the travel costs for the artists during the project.