CORRESPONDANCES IN PALERMO: JAMES TURRELL, THE GURFA AND ALESSANDRO BELGIOJOSO

Written by: michela.moro

James Turrell

A big American artist, a photographer from Milan and a festival in Palermo. A singular melting-pot. It gave us the opportunity to discover a very old place, to enjoy James Turrell’s presence and the city’s hospitality in a baroque scenario.  Thanks to ‘Sole Luna – International Film Festival on Mediterranean and Islamic cultures’ and its President Lucia Gotti Venturato, who had greeted enthusiastically Alessandro Belgiojoso’s proposal.

James Turrell       Lucia Gotti Venturato

Belgiojoso has observed in a new perspective a place at 80 km. from Palermo: the Gurfa. It is a complex of rock-cut caves whose origins seem to go back to 2500 BC. A magical place that had soon reminded Belgiojoso of a big contemporaneous artist’s work: James Turrell’s Roden Crater in the desert of Arizona.

Alessandro Belgiojoso talking to James Turrell

So, last weekend we found ourselves looking at the sky, Turrel included, to watch the Sun that, at noon ‘o clock, goes throughout the opening of Gurfa’s main cave. A special moment for everyone: it doesn’t happen every day that a big contemporaneous artist returns to his own roots 2500 years before!

Alessandro Belgiojoso exhibition, Sole Luna Festival

The festival organized the Belgiojoso video-art exhibition and the preview of the Roden Crater  exhibition of James Turrell, a preview of the Guggheneim anthologic exhibition in 2011 in New York.

Turrel’s lecture, the sky is the main character

The lecture titled Plato’s Cave and the Light inside, on the Roden Crater Project,    was the real present. It was delivered by Turrell, a real performer, in the big cloister of the “Ex Convento di Sant’Anna” in Palermo, location of the “Sole Luna Festival.

James Turrel, Opas Chantkam, Michela Moro, the architect of light Arnold Chan, at the restaurant.

On top of that, these two memorable days ended inside a restaurant on a very happy night table for sixty persons, outside, Palermo-style like.

P.S. The beautiful pictures are Domenico Mangano’s, the other ones are mine.

Land and light, from the Gurfa to the Roden Crater

“Galleria d’Arte Moderna presso l’Ex Convento di Sant’Anna

Palermo”

Until September 6.