Open-air & site-specific photography festival
July 30–August 29, 2021
Sicily
Italy
Large format photography installations, outdoor exhibitions, talks and projections in a unique setting: one of the most large open-air museums of contemporary art in the world. In continuity with the city and the territory, Images Gibellina will reinvent the urban space, bringing art and photography to the streets and squares of Gibellina through 31 indoor and outdoor exhibitions from July 30 to August 29, 2021.
A special edition where the usual festival layout will be maintained but redesigned in a more international dimension in the wake of the important partnership started in 2018 and strengthened this year with the Swiss biennale Images Vevey – an outdoor visual arts event between the most prestigious in the world – and also sealed with the new name Images Gibellina.
Bruce Gilden (US), Stephen Gill (UK), Maurizio Galimberti (Italy), Batia Suter (Switzerland), Francesco Jodice (Italy), Riverboom (Italy/Switzerland), Fang Wen (China), Simona Ghizzoni (Italy), Massimo Siragusa (Italy), Jun Ahn (South Korea), Robert Pufleb & Nadine Schlieper (Germany), Hayahisa Tomiyasu (Switzerland/Japan), Giulia Piermartiri & Edoardo Delille (Italy), Cécile Hummel (Switzerland): here are just a few of the 44 practitioners who were called to experiment through monumental and innovative outdoor installations, in dialogue with a unique city.
Located 45 minutes south of Palermo, Gibellina (Nuova) is an extraordinary architectural and artistic utopia built after an earthquake in 1968, leaving Gibellina (Vecchia) buried under the rubble. By calling the most avant-garde architects and artists of that time, the Mayor of Gibellina had planned a city for 20,000 inhabitants. Only some 3,000 people live there today, and most of the buildings are as spectacular as they are unfinished. The biennale takes place in and around these emblematic buildings: it extends to one of the most famous pieces of land art in the world—the Cretto di Burri—by the artist Alberto Burri, a permanent and gigantic installation of some 100,000 square meters realized in 1984 from the rubble of the famous earthquake. Many other artists have participated in the reconstruction of the new city by offering sculptures or performances: Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, Daniel Spoerri, Joseph Kosuth, Mimmo Paladino or Richard Long.
During the festival’s opening days—July 30–August 1—the city will lighten up with talks, conferences, videomapping projections, guided tours and free workshops. View more information here.
The festival is promoted and supported by Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura, Comune di Gibellina and Fondazione Orestiadi.
Organisation/production: Association On Image (Italy) and Images Vevey (Switzerland)
Directors: Arianna Catania (Italy) and Stefano Stoll (Switzerland)
