An investigation into darkness, its surprises and its ghosts. It is a homage to the Orrido as a physical place and a landscape of the soul, but also a mental excursion into the areas of darkness and abandoned or forgotten objects that resurface to new life with different appearances to what they were and the reasons for which they were created. The suggestion is inspired by the movement of a rivulet of water when it crosses a rock step and becomes a waterfall. From the mystery of karst erosion and the persistent work of excavation that water does on stone. 1 The exhibition stems from the discovery of a nucleus of twenty-five works that Gianni Maimeri (1884-1951) painted between 1906 and 1910 while hiding in the gorges of a ravine. These are paintings that have never been exhibited to the public and can be seen in their entirety for the first time. On the opposite wall of the large room, an excerpt from Agostino Iacurci’s Gypsoteca cycle is set up, and from the windows of the Circolo the unfinished abandoned debris of some important sculptures made at the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, a historic bronze workshop from which the most famous Italian sculptors of the 20th century have passed. A large blue carpet, symbolising the waterfall, ‘gushes’ from the Circolo’s baroque staircase and spills over the contrada, invading it. In the centre of the atrium, a huge yellow ear, by Agostino Iacurci, becomes a metaphysical symbol, listening to the echoes of the Orrido.
