2023

curated by Valentina Bruschi

Àitason is the new work by Paolo William Tamburella that inaugurates the second edition of CORTEMPORANEA, the project that transforms the courtyard and halls of Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, in Piazza del Campo in Siena, into an exhibition space dedicated to site-specific works by Italian and international artists invited by Flavio Misciattelli, President of the Fondazione Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, to freely interpret the space.

A riot of vine plants winds its way from the courtyard through the rooms of the palace's main floor in a movement whose rhythm seems to animate a dance in the ballroom. In a continuous interweaving, they climb and expand around windows, balconies and works from the collection of Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, in a dialectical relationship in which the strength of 18th-century architecture and that of nature confront each other in a symbolic embrace.‘Paolo William Tamburella's work renews the desire to activate the house-museum and open it up to the community through contemporary art projects,’ says Flavio Misciattelli, "with the aim of continuing the encounter between present and past, in which reciprocal suggestions can become an opportunity for stimulation and knowledge.

Àitason is a word of Etruscan origin that describes the cultivation of vines on trees, a technique also known as “maritata vine” in reference to the close bond that is created between the vine and the tree around which it wraps itself for support. Similarly, the artist conceived the site-specific work for CORTEMPORANEA as a sculptural installation that wraps around and through the courtyard and the interior of the palace until it projects itself beyond its walls. Moreover, in the grand ballroom, some vine branches collected by the artist in France on the slopes of the Sainte-Victoire mountain are dressed in precious golden armour, a second skin, an act of protection but even more of rebirth.