Art - Cortemporanea - In progress - Palazzo Chigi Zondadari

Arte

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Cortemporanea
In progress
CORTEMPORANEA 2022

The work

CORTEMPORANEA #2

Àitason by Paolo William Tamburella

curated by Valentina Bruschi

Paolo William Tamburella’s new artwork Àitason will open the second edition of CORTEMPORANEA, the project that transforms the courtyard and halls of Palazzo Chigi Zondadari – located in Siena’s Piazza del Campo – into an exhibition space dedicated to site–specific works by Italian and international artists whom Flavio Misciattelli, President of Fondazione Palazzo Chigi Zondadari has asked to freely interpret the space.
A triumph of vine branches winds from the courtyard through the rooms on the main floor of the mansion, with a rhythm that suggests a dance in the ballroom. A multitude of intertwined branches climb and expand around windows, balconies, and artworks of the collection, as if in a dialectic relationship in which the strength of 18 th century architecture and that of nature confront each other in a symbolic embrace.
“Paolo William Tamburella’s work renews the desire to activate the Casa Museo (house–museum) and open it to the community through contemporary art projects,” says Flavio Misciattelli, “with the aim of furthering the encounter between the present and the past, in which mutual suggestions can become an opportunity for growth and knowledge.”
Àitason is a word of Etruscan origin describing the cultivation of vines on trees, a technique also referred to as ‘married vine’ in reference to the close bond created between the vine and the tree around which it wraps itself for support.
Similarly, the artist has conceived the site–specific work for CORTEMPORANEA as a sculptural installation that wraps around and through the courtyard and the interior of the palace to the point of projecting itself beyond its walls.
Moreover, in the grand ballroom, vine branches collected by the artist in France at the foot of the Sainte–Victoire Mountain are dressed in a precious golden armour – a second skin, an act of protection but even more of rebirth.
The material for the installation was collected by the artist not only in the vineyards of Provence but also in the vine–growing areas around Siena, in an ideal connection between the millenary tradition of viticulture in these different areas of the Mediterranean and the context of Palazzo Chigi Zondadari.
The mansion is still owned by one of the oldest families in the local area, whose wealth has always  been rooted in agricultural activity and then also reinvested in cultured patronage, as the palace’s collection testifies.
As curator Valentina Bruschi writes in her essay for the catalogue, “Paolo William Tamburella’s sculptural installation becomes a unique work of art in which the intertwining of surprisingly large vines grafted onto the 18th –century architecture of the palace seems to celebrate its magnificence in a eulogy of past centuries and of Time in which nature is in symbiosis with the house, as if it had always lived there and had always engaged in a mutual dialogue.”

The artist

Paolo William Tamburella is an artist that lives and works between Rome and Tuscany and is known for his site-specific interventions produced using the most diverse materials as part of a dialogue with the contexts that host them. His works address various issues related to cultural identity and the enhancement and rediscovery of traditions. He has participated in the 53rd Venice Biennale and the 2nd Singapore Biennale and began his exhibition career in New York with gallery owner Annina Nosei. He was co-curator of the first Bangladesh pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.

https://www.paolowilliamtamburella.com/
Instagram: @paolo_william_tamburella

Photogallery

  • Àitason, Paolo William Tamburella - environmental dimensions, Vine-shoots, 2023
    Setting-up process Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, Siena - Courtesy the artist
    Photo @ElaBialkowska OKNOstudio

Main photo:
Àitason – Paolo William Tamburella – environmental dimensions, Vine-shoots, 2023
setting-up process Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, Siena – Courtesy the artist
Photo @JonoNussbaum

Visit

Art - Cortemporanea - In progress - Palazzo Chigi Zondadari