Masseria Art Project
presents
Roberto Paci Dalò
THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS
Two site-specific installations for Masseria Torre Coccaro and Masseria Torre Maizza
+ an audio-video architectural performance.
Opening: May 28th, 2011 at 8pm.
Two projects connected in both cases using the existing buildings. An existing place which is at the moment hidden even though is visible to everybody. This are the two Pigeon Houses set on the roofs of the Masserias. Two artifacts different one from the other and especially interesting both for aesthetic and historical reasons. A (double) artwork thought to create new usable spaces that are also ancient at the same time.
At the Masseria Torre Maizza will be produced "The Color of Pomegranates" based on a pigeon house built in a square plan. An excellent observation point that I will try to transform in a sensory space. An observation point but also a thinking space, a place to use at the same time inside and outside, private and public. A sensory space made of light, perfumes. chromatism, sounds evoking a world and a look toward the Bizantine East and the Transcaucasian.
The title is an explicit homage to the movie The Color of Pomegranates also known as Sayat - Nova. The movie is the biography of Sayat-Nova, an Armenian trobadour from XVII century and the author is one of the most extraordinay authors of last century moviemaking: Sergej Paradjanov (1924-1990)
With the opening in the ceiling the Creation of a Circle that frames the Sky. On a wall the opening of ancient slots in different shapes that will be able to isolate portions of the landscape. The "Shelves" that in ancient times housed the trained pigeons for the transport of messages, they are transformed in classifiers that contain precious materials such as oil, fabrics, plants. The crops that surround the Tower supply the materials itselfs, especially pomegranate. The floor sees a "carpet" made of especially painted tiles in which the main chromatic reference is the color Purpora to evoke the Armenian Tradition. A bench will be created to allow the rest of the voyagers, The collaboration with the artisans of the area is fundamental for the achievement of the artwork.
As Boghos Levon Zekiyan writes:
"Red colour" in the Armenian imaginary mixes with the myths of the beginning of times. In the Hymn celebrating the birth of the Vaghan, the most ancient fragment of the mytical epic chants that we have received from Armenia, Porpora appears as image and shape of the space, like an eruption from the bowels of the abyss almost like a primordial element holding the cosmic frameworks, ephipany arcana of divine genesis and palingenesis. The Sky, the Earth and the Sea are colored by Red and Her Fire Flares the Hairs, the Beard and the Eyes of the Divinely old Nascent Child. " Red" in Armenian Tzirani (literally apricot colour). Etymologically linked to the apricot while the fruit is almost a symbol of the Armenia even in the scientific name, prunus armeniaca, also for the uncommon taste and colour.(...)
Myth and Nature then concur to make "Red" the stronghold of the Armenian imaginary with many events in the arts, in the miniature, in the folklore, in the liturgy with mutual interchanges and influences with the neighboring populations and cultures and beyond (...)
The Arab Ibn- Hawkal will even write that the so-called Armenian merchandise asmaf-al armani, is unrivalled in the world (..). Is proverbial in this respect the red of the Armenian Pomegranates, "fire red" in the popular speech, of which the most burning specimens grow especially to the south and to the east of lake Sevan upo to hills of Karabagh, the ancient Artsakh. The Pomegranate, full of symbolic values since remote antiquity, in both oriental and occidental settings, was toghether with grape (even though seen most often in connection to the vivid red blood), used and processed with particular emphasis in Armenian Medieval Art"
– Boghos Levon Zekiyan, "The Red in Armenia amongst Myth, Folklore, Art and religiosity. From the Hymn of Vahagn to the Armenian bolus" (1996)
The Artwork next to the Pigeon House of Masseria Torre Coccaro is inspired by The Conference of The Birds (Mantiqu´t- Tayr) a canonic writing of Sufi Literature written by Farid al-Din Attar in 1977 Farid al-Din Attar is considered one of the masters of medieval Iranic literature being one of the most important master of sufist literature of his times. Sufism (tasawuuf) is a speculative religious doctrine, coming from esoteric influences with an impulse first of all influenced by islamic,indian but also christian, zoroastrain and manichean practices.
At the centre of the spiritual investigation of Attar configures thetheme of the voyage of the soul from is departure from the mundane world of certainties to the pure and spiritual world of research. Protagonist of this epic, such as a real summa of the most refined and sophisticated mysticism of an Esoteric Islam, is a group of birds congregated in a conference wanted by King Salomon in the presence of the Hoopoe. An allegoric poem that describes the search of the birds (the Sufis) for the mytical Simorgh or Phoenix, that they want to elect as their Kíng (God). In the final scene the birds that have survived the voyage get close to the throne contemplating their reflections in their faces such as mirrors of the Simorgh realizing that they are one and the same thing.
May 28th only!:
ORDAN KARMIR
architectural audio-video performance by Roberto Paci Dalò
idea, images, music: Roberto Paci Dalò
live video, mapping: Emanuele 14c0 Russo
sampled voice: Levon Zekiyan
co-production Giardini Pensili - Masseria Art Project
in collaboration with: Zoosafari Fasano
Thanks to Galerie Mario Mazzoli Berlin.
