From June 1st
to January 16th, 2023
KORA - Contemporary Arts center, Castrignano de' Greci
Condividi
A cura di
Ramdom e Fondazione Elpis
A Sud di Marte
From June 1st
to January 16th, 2023
KORA - Contemporary Arts center, Castrignano de' Greci
Condividi
A cura di
Ramdom e Fondazione Elpis

A Sud Di Marte is a plan of artistic residencies realised in collaboration
with Fondazione Elpis, which took place in the spaces of KORA - Centro del Contemporaneo from April 2022 to February 2023.
Through a two-month residency period for each of the four invited artists - Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Ulanbaataar, Mongolia, 1994), Agnese Spolverini (Viterbo, 1994), Martina Melilli (Padua, 1987), Matteo Pizzolante (Tricase, 1989) - the project addresses the vision of a South understood not only as a place rich in complexity, but also as an opportunity for the activation of an oblique gaze solicited by constant questions.
The title takes its inspiration from the red planet, an outpost that has always suggested in the collective imagination the vision of a remote place linked to the desire for exploration.
Even in its remoteness, Mars paradoxically advances as a possibility of discovery, representing the announcement of something that, while on the one hand has yet to be fully realised, on the other hand retains a strong utopian thrust for its ever nearer happening.
Following this track, the South is configured not only as an exotic place to land in, but also and above all as a possible push and encouragement to experimentation and utopian tension; a potentially limitless boundary capable of continually shifting and reforming itself, taking on ever different contours and forms.
A realisable utopia, says Yona Friedman, is only seemingly a contradiction in terms. Believing in a utopia and being a realist at the same time is not incompatible, "a utopia is, par excellence, realisable" on the condition of obtaining the necessary collective consensus, because a utopia imposed by force is no longer one.
The South, then, as a space in which to practise a mobile and transitory orientation exercise, to take one's gaze in unexpected directions. A place where apparent weaknesses can be transformed into strengths, overturning paradigms to draw a new and radical imaginary.
The artists invited for A Sud di Marte are therefore called upon to make a journey to and in the South understood not only as a geographical place but as a working methodology.

Bekhbaatar Enkhtur
Agnese Spolverini
Martina Melilli
Matteo Pizzolante
Bekhbaatar Enkhtur

Bekhbaatar Enkhtur’s reflection on territory can only begin with his country of origin, Mongolia, whose culture and iconography play a central role in the artist’s work. During his residency in Castrignano de’ Greci, he drew inspiration from the earliest western travellers, the explorers from the “known” world to the distant “Orient”, to the edges of what was then unknown, recounting its wonders and traditions. Enkhtur’s work is therefore modulated according to the notes of travel and discovery. Fountain is a sculpture inspired by the stories of Flemish missionary William de Rubruck, who between 1253 and 1255 travelled as far as the Khan’s palace in Karakorum. Here, according to de Rubruck’s account, travellers were welcomed into a garden where at the centre there was a large fountain, described as “the silver tree”, decorated with cherubs, trumpets, lions and snakes, from whose mouths flowed wine, milk, rice liquor and a drink based on honey. Such a device, much more than just an ornamental sculpture, was used to distribute intoxicating beverages, and to entertain guests at feasts or audiences. Fountain presents the same theatrical combination of forms and elements, distributed over two floors of the Fondazione. Just as the fountain in the courtyard of the Karakorum palace welcomed travellers, traders and diplomats, Enkhtur’s work invites visitors to lose themselves in its sinuous forms and to help themselves to the wine flowing from its spouts. Enkhtur’s work thus reveals another approach to space and territory, no longer physical, neither mystical nor biographical, but imaginative.

photo by Fabrizio Vatieri