EDITORIAL

M

any weather forecasts make us fear heatwaves for summer 2015 like the record heat of 2003, also in Puglia. But it is above all in Salento that the season looks like it will reach high social and cultural temperatures. Many serious issues have been dragging on for some time, experienced as a threat to the environment and the economy: controversy over the best way to contain and eliminate the xylella virus currently undermining the ancient olive trees in the countryside around Lecce and Brindisi, local opposition to the TAP gas pipeline from Albania planned to come ashore on San Foca beach, (though the work is going ahead), new fears of the search for oil off the Apulian coast, recently authorized by the government. But they are clouds that Puglia seems to want get rid of or at least brush away with the splendor of its nature, which is drawing growing numbers of elite international tourists wanting to get a house here, and with the vitality of groups who are launching artistic and cultural initiatives of great quality.

Most of the action is concentrated in Salento. It is not a matter of phenomena that have become enormous attractions in the media like the Notte della Taranta, which continues to draw huge crowds but is starting to suffer from an identity crisis. Instead, these are events that have grown slowly, without fuss, with a pioneering spirit, in small towns, that are now emerging from their respective niches with certain shared features and that could “create a network” with interesting ramifications for the social system and the local economy. Characterising this series of events: the valorization of unconventional places and spaces linked to the history of the territory (castles, mansions previously owned by the nobility, private residences, abandoned public buildings); the preference for artistic expressions involving the common people not only as audience but as operators (artisans, service providers, collaborators) and as “actors”; the use of unconventional media like cinema, video, electronic music, installations and performances using materials from the place itself and poor objects; the interest in current social issues.

In Gallipoli castle, a master of contemporary art like Michelangelo Pistoletto has created a site specific version of his Terzo Paradiso, a message of conciliation between nature and technological culture: an intertwined double circle (primary sign of the Infinite) made of local stone, and in the center an olive tree (until September 27). At Torre Santa Susanna (Brindisi) the artist and curator Giuseppe Pinto, born in the town, has transformed his house into a gallery (“L.A.L.D. Space”) presenting (until September 30) videos of three young artists of different nationalities who develop themes on the female condition, with preference given to visits (by appointment only) from women. And also: from July 11 to August 2, on the top floor of the Gagliano-Leuca station, the last stop on the Sud-Est railway line, there are videos and photos of the popular public art operations carried out last year in the Cape area by four young Italian artists in the project “Indagine sulle Terre Estreme”/“Study of Extreme Lands” promoted by the association Ramdom based in Gagliano and linked to the association GAP in Lecce. The project will be renewed this summer with another master class led by famous Spanish film-maker Carlos Casas, who is also making a video about the Salentinian “Finis Terrae”.

In Galatina on July 19, in Palazzo Mongiò dell’Elefante della Torre, there is the opening of an exhibition by Italian and foreign artists on the theme of Light (physical and symbolic) with installations using different lighting technology. Then on from 22 to 25 July Specchia will hold the twelfth edition of the Festival of Cinema of the Real, which is a multimedia “feast” with the projection of experimental film and video as well as performances of modern dance. This year there will be a homage (meaningful and relevant) to Greece, with the presence of Greek guests including directors and artists. At Gagliano del Capo the Art Head association led by Francesco Petrucci from Lecce and Francesca Bonomo from Bari has for several years been putting forward advanced art experiences. From July 25 in the abandoned Daniele Romasi palazzo, they will be presenting a trilogy of works of sound art by the Soundwalk Collective, an international group that has bases in New York and Berlin: recordings and compositions of the sounds of nature collected in various parts of the world between land and sea, and the sounds and voices of the protagonists of the the musical avantguard like Velvet Underground, Patti Smith and Vito Acconci. The show is arranged and curated bv the Milanese architect Luca Cipelletti, abd the whole show is guided by Massimo Torrigiani, the young Barese curator who lives in Milan. On July 31 Sarah Ciracì, an artist from Grottaglie that came to fame during her years in Milan, is celebrating her definitive “return to the village” with a personal show – “fourhanded” – with Renato Galante, a Tarantine artist that became successful in Milan and Amsterdam. The unusual location is a ceramics workshop in Grottaglie. The double personal show is curated by Antonella Marino, with coordination of the group by Co.61.

Finally, the small town of Scorrano this year, too, from July 4 to 9 for Santa Domenica, offered nights of “musical lighting” of the huge traditional illuminations that attract people from all over the world. This was yet another unmissable emotion of nights in Salento. If you missed it, put it in the diary for summer 2016.

In Puglia the combination of contemporary culture and the vitality of popular traditions, Memory marrying the Project, from a promise is starting to become reality.