RESTITUIRE.
It is part of the shared program promoted by ORMA – Officine per la Ricerca e la Mediazione nell’Arte, a network bringing together independent entities engaged in contemporary research within the Messina area.
For the 2026 AMACI Contemporary Art Day, ORMA presents a distributed calendar of events across various locations in the province of Messina, highlighting the diversity of experiences and projects that make up the network. The Rediscovered Antonello
“We found a work of art in the center of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto (Messina)! The panel painting, depicting an angel in prayer, had been abandoned in Vicolo I Mandanici, propped against the wall of our home—our ‘art home,’ that is. It was half-hidden by bags of miscellaneous refuse: a slashed tire, some construction debris, and a blue bucket—sun-bleached and of the sort used back in the day for mopping floors.
Accustomed as we are to cleaning up that stretch of street—which we still believe belongs to us, but which others have long treated as a dumping ground—finding a painting there didn’t come as a surprise. The things people are capable of throwing away are unbelievable; take our word for it, we have years of experience dealing with trash!
And yet, none of us—there were three of us that September morning—expected to find a treasure in our hands.
We had heard on the radio about the theft of artworks from the Messina museum—a crime committed quietly during the Feast of the Assumption. While everyone was watching the Virgin Mary ‘fly’ 17 meters in the air atop a baroque float—drawn through the city with great pomp, surrounded by chubby angels and fireworks—someone had broken into the museum gallery and dismantled the ‘San Gregorio Polyptych’ by Antonello da Messina. Our first reaction: shock!!!”
Read more at collettivoflock.it”
