LAGOPESOLE CASTLE – POTENZA – ITALIA
18 – 28 July 2019
At its first international event, the prize was a great success in terms of collective participation: in terms of registrations, with a total of around 400 applications; in terms of participating artists, with a total of 73 people attending the exhibition and a total of 120 works on display; in terms of the public, with a total of 100 participants in the seminars and activities that enlivened the venue for 10 days; but also, and above all, in terms of sharing the proposed methods of cultural relations and fruition. The artists, who came from every corner of the planet (United States, Mauritius, South Africa, Brazil, China, Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, United Kingdom, France, Germany…), naturally formed a lively community of artists. ), have naturally constituted a lively cultural community in the Castello di Lagopesole, refuting with extraordinary simplicity and clarity the idea that the attractiveness, energy and significance of a place can be linked to some extent to its centrality in economic and geographical directions, which on the contrary clearly demonstrate that they are missing out on an important slice of what is worth experiencing, especially in that context dedicated to the elaboration of the other, which is art.
Thinking mediterranean
the 2019 theme
Thinking “Mediterranean” means recognising diversity as an inalienable value and cultural contamination not as a risk for identities, but as the only tool for the evolution of individuals and therefore of the community. In this sense, the international matrix of the format, by bringing together multiple cultural individualities and identities, intends to offer an extraordinary opportunity for meeting, confrontation and common growth at a time when saying “evolution” seem to recall increasingly uniform and stereotyped paths. The choice of exhibition spaces is not random, and the artists and works of art have been chosen in the places most dear to Frederick II of Swabia. Nicknamed Stupor Mundi, in the Middle Ages the Emperor had already grasped the concept of the universality of human knowledge, capable of evolving only thanks to the contribution of different identity knowledge.
The Castle of Lagopesole
the context of 2019
The Castle of Lagopesole is the last and the largest residence wanted by Emperor Frederick II of Swabia in Basilicata, built between 1242 and 1250. A hunting and entertainment residence built in a suggestive position, in an area of great strategic importance since the early Middle Ages. Its square, quadrangular and symmetrical shapes and isolated towers, reminiscent of the Byzantine castles of the East or the legendary Crusader castles, have the arcane power to take you distant lands and evoke the sounds, languages and customs of Frederick’s multi-ethnic court. The Castle of Lagopesole, the famous portum Montis Vulturis of the Middle Ages, is one of the most authentic expressions of Frederick’s architecture. Thinking of the surrounding forest as an ideal place to practise his beloved art of hunting with a falcon, in 1242, Emperor Frederick II of Swabia began expanding the pre-existing Norman stronghold to transform it into his summer residence.
