A visit in Matera to realize that time could be an extraordinary conceptual artist

 

The Italian city of Matera is famous thanks to the “Sassi” (stones), rocks where human settlements have developed without interruption from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century, producing a unique evocative urban and architectural structure that goes from primitives dwellings dug into the tuff (tufo) rock to contemporary art.
Rock churches and their monasteries are interesting for their architectural value and the pictorial decorations. The Church of Our Lady of Virtues and that of San Nicola dei Greci are also noteworthy, dating back to the ninth century, with paintings of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. But there are more ancient pictorial evidences, such as wall paintings in the Crypt of the Original Sin (a cave a few kilometers away from the city, lost in the green), dating from the eighth and ninth centuries. In Matera you can find many interesting Romanesque churches too, such as the church of San Domenico, of the thirteenth century, full of sculptures attributed to Stefano da Putignano; or the Church of St. John the Baptist, from the same period.

 

This place has also a tradition of contemporary art, thanks to the work of the so called Club La Scaletta. Among the initiatives of the Club, founded in 1959, there was a major exhibition dedicated to Pietro Consagra in 1978 that involved all the city, and the nearby highlands. Some of the sculptures from the shown are now preserved at the Fondazione Pietro Rossini, near Milan. At that time a document in defense of art and historical centres was written and signed by abstract artists such as Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Dadamaino, Giuseppe Santomaso, Giulio Turcato. In 1987 the Club La Scaletta organized a solo show of Fausto Melotti, with the artworks exhibited in a cave church.

 

Many works that have gone on display during the time have been collected in the Musma, the museum of contemporary sculpture located in Palazzo Pomarici. The museum covers over 1,000 square meters and contains 250 works by Italian and international artists such as Medardo Rosso, Pablo Picasso, Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, or Carla Accardi.
A great experience can be lived, finally, in the underground of Matera, in the so-called “long Diver”, a water cistern which is a wonderful and ancient engineering work but it has all the appearance of a work of contemporary environmental art. It makes you think that “time” is always an extraordinary artist.

July 26, 2015