10.09.18 | 17.09.18

Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera of Milan and Dipartimento dei Beni culturali e dell’Identità siciliana, present The Hidden City, at Palazzo Abatellis from the 10 to the 17 September. Collateral Event of Manifesta 12, on the occasion of Palermo Capitale della Cultura 2018, the project curated by Cloe Piccoli, with the artist Stefano Graziani, and the general coordination of Evelina De Castro, Director of Galleria Regionale della Sicilia di Palazzo Abatellis, in collaboration with three prestigious Institutions based in Palermo: Scuola Politecnica - Università di Palermo, Conservatorio Vincenzo Bellini and Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo.

The Hidden City is a project in three parts – a workshop, a public program and a book, drawing from the narrative tradition of Palermo and focusing on one of the singular aspects of Manifesta 12, the contamination of cultures and languages. The Hidden City assimilates Manifesta’s main theme from this particular point of view. It investigates Palazzo Abatellis with Cloe Piccoli and Stefano Graziani, to unveil, to narrate and to delve into the cultural stratification of an historic and important place of the city of Palermo. The idea of The Hidden City is to look at the identity of Palazzo Abatellis through its art, architecture, history, and the narratives, legends and documents of the archive. The research will span eras and disciplines, and will also touch on the relationship between Palazzo Abatellis and the surrounding urban context.

The Hidden City is a laboratory of hidden stories, which spans through this ancient aristocratic palace, turned into convent, and later into the Regional Gallery of Sicily, with the 1953 museographic intervention of Carlo Scarpa, remaining one of the most fascinating works by the Venetian architect. Here, in the same spirit as Manifesta 12, a new narration will be constructed, through historical and contemporary suggestions, art and architecture, photography and archives.

The Workshop will be a research on details, fragments of the palace, which represent the complexity of the place. The participants will have free access to the archive, the library and the most hidden areas of the museum. Guided by the artist and the curator, they will develop a collective narrative, 30 dossiers with texts and images, that will be available for the visitors of the gallery to see on Sunday 16th of September. Over this period the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia di Palazzo Abatellis will be regularly open to the public.

For seven days, at dusk, the Public Program will bring together each evening numerous international guests for a talk open to the public: architects, writers, anthropologists, botanists, musicians, will present their personal point of view on a single aspect of Palazzo Abatellis and the themes of The Hidden City. The talks will take place in front of the magnificent “Triumph of Death”, in Palazzo Abatellis, and, on the 14th of September, in the Sala delle Capriate in Palazzo Steri, another of the most beautiful historic palazzos in the Kalsa area of Palermo. Some of the guests: artists like Massimo Bartolini, Stefania Galegati, Simon Starling, Luca Trevisani, architects like Emanuel Christ, Kersten Geers, Ippolito Pestellini, Kuehn Malvezzi, Onsite Studio, scholars like Paola Barbera, Guido Beltramini, Maria Vittoria Capitanucci, Philippe Duboÿ, Margherita Guccione, Matteo Iannello, Giovanni Iovane, Pierfrancesco Palazzotto.

On Saturday night there will be a contemporary music concert in the court of Palazzo Abatellis, curated by Conservatorio di Musica Vincenzo Bellini.

The book, in English and Italian, will take the form of diary or artists guide, in and around Palazzo Abatellis. The idea is to take Palazzo Abatellis as the starting point, in order to then illustrate other stories and places that are connected to it. It will be a narrative environment where historical and legendary components, artistic and literary, material culture and evocative suggestions will meet. All through the eyes of the artist and the curator and the different international authors that will be invited to participate.