A preview of what will happen in Messina in 2025. “Expo Arte Messina 2024” paves the way for the “Art Biennale” that the city of the Strait will host next year: an idea by Gianfranco Pistorio shared and supported by numerous implementing bodies (among these also the Orders of Architects and Engineers, the university, the Chamber of Commerce and Archeoclub) and which will act as a running-in for the great event, also from an organizational point of view.
Many city sites involved and a hundred artists who will lend their work from next October 4th and for one monthall free of charge: “Messina – says Pistorio – has always been a cultural center, a natural crossroads of peoples and artists and it is absurd that it does not have its own Biennale. This Expo is financed entirely by me, because I believe in the valorization of this city and also that art and culture can be a driving force and tourist attraction. We will fill many city sites with beauty and art, understood as painting, sculpture and photography. There will be exhibitions, cultural conferences with illustrious architects and engineers, but also theatrical and musical works”.
The customs, the Chamber of Commerce, the university, the archdiocese and other regional bodies have already been involved, with the program that will be fully revealed in the coming weeks. Works by, among others, the late Luigi Ghersi, Ranieri Wanderligh, Michele D’Avenia and Maurizio Gemelli will be hosted, while the masters Paolo Lanza and Francesco Mento have devotedly curated the selection of artists: «We are still waiting for the response from other local bodies – continues Pistorio – and I am sure that it will not be long in coming, because I think an operation like the Biennale is in everyone’s interest.
Access to the various sites will be free and the artists’ participation will be free of charge: a selection process was held and over a thousand artists from all over Italy participated, bringing beautiful proposals. We have chosen a few dozen that we will place alongside well-known names who have made the history of art in our city. Museum-like installations will be created inside the buildings, so that each individual work has its own valorization and spacing, so we imagine no more than 15/20 installations per site. It will also be an opportunity to get to know the city and its “palaces” from other points of view.”
An authentic “king of the evenings” since the late 80s, Gianfranco Pistorio now invests in the art and culture of Messina: «My experience has been known to everyone since 1987, so much so that in 1993 “Panorama” and “Espresso” indicated me among the best national organizers. I also remember with pleasure the evenings organized in Taormina and at the Greek theater with the late Saro Fichera, but in the last 7/8 years I have created a series of structural events on art, because you grow and mature and there is everything for every age. I don’t see myself now experiencing evenings in a disco, so I hope to be the link between generations, putting all my experience and knowledge into this project. It is an investment I make in the city, because Messina deserves to have its Biennale».