Salice Nero, Contemporary art in Roccalumera

Curated by Matteo Galbiati—an art critic and the Scientific Director at SMart, where he oversees the association’s artist residencies, exhibitions, and industry publications—this project includes Salice Nero (Black Willow). This installation draws inspiration from the poem Alle fronde dei salici (On the Willow Boughs) by Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo, a piece written in 1945 and published in the collection Giorno dopo giorno (Day After Day, 1947). Just as the poem reflects on the horrors of war, the exhibited artwork contemplates the persistence of human tragedy and the memory of conflict: X-ray films and acrylic yarns evoke petroleum and its role in the history of 20th-century and contemporary warfare, while a 19th-century zither—missing a string and resting on the ground—seems to wait for the moment it might play again.
The main installation in the Tower is accompanied by other works by the artist, such as BABEL scripta volant—which addresses the loss of the written word as a form of testimony in the digital age—and the multicolored Gargofanie.