La città sommersa | HYPERMAREMMA

Artisti: Renata De Bonis, Michela De Mattei, Emiliano Maggi, Daniele Milvio, Rachel Monosov, Matteo Nasini, Pietro Pasolini, Alessandro Piangiamore, Benedetto Pietromarchi, Gianni Politi, Namsal Siedlecki, Piotr Skiba, Giovanni Vetere.

The second chapter of HYPERMAREMMA, La Città Sommersa (The Sunken City), originates within the exceptional setting of the ancient town of Cosa, an archeological site located on the Ansedonia promontory, which houses the ruins of an ancient Roman settlement. Founded in 273 BC as a Roman colony, Cosa overlooks the Argentario gulf. In this privileged territory, among the remains of the ancient city walls, the forum, the basilica and the capitolium, 14 young artists of different nationalities and cultures invited to dialogue with the place will scatter their works.

In close comparison with the surrounding history and environment, a series of high-impact installations and sculptural interventions will retrace the archaeological park using different languages. The redesigned path will involve the visitor and bring them to rethink the place through new visions. The aim is to make the city re-emerge through a dreamlike rereading of its spaces, its history and its landscape. Thus, the city will be imagined to live a second life.

A tribute to an iconic artist of the 70s was advanced for the first edition of the event. His sculptural research, especially linked to dialogue with the territory, led him to be one of the most renowned sculptors of the second half of the 20th century: MAURO STACCIOLI (Volterra 1937-Milan 2018). The artist always conceived his work based on the location the works were intended for. The intent of his sculptures has always been to modify the context in which they were inserted, through the reconfiguration of the space and of the entire surrounding landscape through its ancestral geometries and its visionary volumes. The Prismoidi as Staccioli writes, “appear like dice thrown on the table in a casual way to define a plurality of orientations and points of view in a bewildering precarious arrangement”.

The artists will trigger a short circuit between past and present, generating the forms of an unexpected City, with new presences, sounds and elements that can repopulate what in ancient times was the main crossroads of the lower Maremma.

In collaboration with Museo Archeologico Nazionale dell’Antica Città di Cosa and Polo Museale della Toscana.