Art Beyond Tragedy: The Resilience of Gibellina

There was little to see in Gibellina, a small Italian town in the middle of Sicily, in the 1960s. It was an agricultural territory made of humble yet honest people. However, everything changed after 1968. In January of that year, an earthquake destroyed the entire valley of Belice and Gibellina, the epicentre of this catastrophe with 6500 inhabitants, was razed to the ground. Tragically, hundreds of people died and thousands were severely injured. Everyone lost their homes. Mayor Ludovico Corrao was then faced with a fundamental issue: would it be better to rebuild the entire town just as it was or to take this catastrophic incident as an opportunity to implement creativity and create a new Gibellina?

Corrao decided to help the territory leave its poverty and misery behind, inviting artists from all over the world to give life to an open-air museum, namely the town itself.

Alberto Burri, Grande Cretto, 2018. Photo Courtesy: Aurelio Amendola

The project was divided in two: the old town destroyed by the earthquake would later be entirely covered by landscape artwork Il Grande Cretto (“The Big Crack”), designed by Alberto Burri. And to relocate the remaining inhabitants, a new Gibellina was to be built some twenty kilometres away and it would become a new vibrant cultural centre.

Ludovico Corrao and Alberto Burri. Photo Courtesy: Lezioni d’arte.

The Cretto was designed and partially built in the 1980s to cover the rubble of old Gibellina after the earthquake, in order to remember a town that no longer existed. The idea was to rebuild the destroyed town’s streets and blocks, creating a concrete labyrinth that would follow the ancient road pattern, allowing people to walk through and physically experience the artwork. The work was finally completed in 2015, to mark what would have been Burri’s 100th birthday.

The concept of this gigantesque artwork was already explored by Burri on a smaller scale with his paintings, called precisely Cretti. The same cracks created in the paintings can be found in the concrete blocks that create this immense work of art which stretches out over old Gibellina like a blanket.

Alberto Burri, Cretto, 1975. Photo Courtesy: Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri.

To complete the process of catharsis initiated by the Cretto, mayor Ludovico Corrao also decided to organise an annual theatre festival to be held in summer, between July and September. In the decades to follow, the festival, called Orestiadi (named after Aeschylus’s Oresteia), would become an international success, with shows held en plein air between the Cretto and the Baglio di Stefano – a former typical Sicilian farm later refurbished as an open-air theatre. The first theatrical representation performed there was the eponymous masterpiece Oresteia; a family saga made of blood and crimes which nevertheless concludes with a positive final reconciliation. The drama was rewritten by Italian artist and writer Emilio Isgrò and adapted to the new venue by director Filippo Crivelli, with sceneries by Arnaldo Pomodoro: the perfect mix to create a uniquely spectacular event.

Performers and audience during the Orestiadi Festival.

In the meantime, New Gibellina was to become an extraordinary town in its own way. Following Corrao’s ideas, from the 1970s onwards, Gibellina became one of Italy’s biggest open-air museums. Artists and architects from all over the world were called to create more than 50 artworks and several urban planning projects to make the new town unique. The first oeuvre visible from afar is Stella d’ingresso al Belice (“Star entrance to Belice”), built by Pietro Consagra in 1981 and now a symbol of the resilience and determination of the territory. The artwork stands over the road that goes towards New Gibellina and recalls the luminarie, the festivity lights typical of Southern Italy.

Another one of the most famous artworks displayed in Gibellina is Montagna di Sale (“Mountain of Salt”), created in 1990 by Mimmo Paladino and permanently situated within the Baglio di Stefano, also the location of a Contemporary Art Museum. The artwork was initially created, as many others of the pieces which populate Gibellina, as part of the scenography for the Orestiadi Festival. In this case, Friedrich Schiller’s The Bride of Messina, directed by Elio De Capitani. After the end of the season, it was installed in Gibellina and then duplicated and exhibited both in Naples and Milan. Among other significant artworks and buildings, there can be found Sistema delle piazze (“Squares system”) by Franco Purini and Laura Thermes, the Church designed by Ludovico Quaroni, the City Hall designed by Vittorio Gregotti, sculpture Sequenze (“Sequences”) by Fausto Melotti and Aratro di Didone (“Didone’s plow”), realised by Arnaldo Pomodoro to act as a background for Christopher Marlowe’s play Dido, Queen of Carthage, directed by Cherif in 1986.

Pietro Consagra, Stella d’ingresso al Belice, 1981. Photo Courtesy: Di Casa in Sicilia.

Mimmo Paladino, Montagna di Sale, 1990. Photo Courtesy: Fondazione Orestiadi.

Thanks to the innovative view of Ludovico Corrao, Alberto Burri and all the other artists and architects that helped reshape Gibellina, this small Sicilian town is now a cultural centre of unprecedented interest. No other examples of such commitment exist in Italy, despite its ancient heritage and its cultural importance. To construct this small town and its Cretto, considered one of the most significant landscape artworks of the last century, is no easy task. The road is tortuous, the location almost forgotten amidst the Sicilian mountains. Nevertheless, to be able to come across this immense artwork – and everything else that comes with it – is a priceless experience. In a territory that seems lost in time, almost the same as hundreds of years ago, the project of Gibellina echoes with all its splendour throughout the valleys and into the sea in front of Palermo. A jewel embedded in the middle of nowhere, always there to be (re)discovered and cherished.

Beatrice Borriero

En Plein Air Co-Editor, MADE IN BED