Basilicata is a rugged and strong land of rocky promontories and arid vegetation, but also of wooded hills and beautiful waterways. Spring and early autumn, when the temperatures are warm but the air is filled with a gentle breeze, are the perfect seasons to enjoy its wonders, and the Parco Nazionale del Pollino is the most evocative place where one can admire them in their entirety. The park covers 192,565.00 hectares of land, it is the largest protected area in Italy and the second largest in Europe as it straddles two regions, Basilicata and Calabria.
In this corner of pristine nature made up of plateaus, pastures, meadows, cliffs, karst caves and deep gorges, the ArtePollino association, set up in 2008, created – in collaboration with Arte Continua – a project in dialogue with some important contemporary artists. Entering into conversation with the territory, while maintaining their stylistic signature, Anish Kapoor, Giuseppe Penone and Carsten Höller were invited to create site-specific interventions in the park.
The fusion with art is total: the visitor does not observe the works from afar as in a museum, but physically enters into them. You can walk along the corridor of Earth Cinema, a 45-meter long by 7-meter deep cut in the ground, and watch the sounds and movements of the earth projected on the screen; you can perceive the link with ancestral cultures when standing at the center of Giuseppe Penone’s Teatro Vegetale, a 120-meter diameter circle delimited by rocks and other elements. Lastly, you can enjoy a breathtaking view from Carsten Höller’s RB Ride installation, an enormous and colorful merry-go-round housing 12 rotating spaceships. What is surprising is the incredibly slow movement of the machine, which contradicts the expectations of a public accustomed to amusement parks but enhances the beauty of the view and transforms the viewer into a child lost in an unknown world.
In short, a solitary escape not to be missed.
A precious contribution to the realization of the project was made by the Associazione Arte Continua with its decades of experience in Arte all’Arte.
