Notorious Vandal Strikes Again - The Florentine

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18 Thursday 20 October 2005 How DO YOU...? Life in Italy Buy, Drive & Ship a Volvo Memoirs of a Four-Wheel Foreign Driver By Jocelyn Morse www.theflorentine.net My daughter’s battle against culture shock was won with the purchase of a used red bicycle. It cost her thirty euros and she’s assured me that the brakes work. She said that a bike is a permanent thing that has helped her feel grounded. “If you own something you can’t fit into a suitcase, it makes you feel like you’re really living somewhere, and not just floating. That’s why you want a car, isn’t it?” she asked me a few weeks ago. “Maybe,” I answered. At that point, what I wanted seemed irrelevant. To buy a car in Italy, and to have an Italian license plate on your car, you have to be an Italian resident with a valid permesso di soggiorno. Or else there’s the tax-free option of buying in Switzerland or Germany and then taking a road trip back to Italy. It means, however, that you have a license plate from one of those countries, even if you can drive in Italy with no problems until the expiration of your plates. I was feeling daunted about the decision because, after all, a car is not a 30-euro bike, and I needed a little encouragement before braving the purchase. I found it while at a friend’s dinner party as I “mingled” with a group of other expatriates sitting cross-legged at the coffee table filled with Tuscan cheeses. In reality we are all completely satisfied with being foreign, bohemian, and lucky enough to share the wealth of one of the world’s most beautiful cities. But soon enough the jokes started and the gripes began, as we treated ourselves to a little community commiseration, forgetting temporarily that things are not, in reality, as perfect and easy as we remember them to be in our respective home countries. The conversation turned to bureaucracy, bus strikes, getting ripped off and the requited “trauma-sharing” of “sticker-shock” experiences in Italy. That’s how we got on the subject of car rentals and leases. Two of my friends were paying the same amount for a six-month lease that I had spent to buy a new car in the states. Peter, my “veteran” friend, (he’s been here a year longer than the rest of us), then told us about how he had bought a new Volvo and was getting to drive it “for free” while he was here. “Well, why didn’t you say something sooner?” I found myself saying. Having felt repeatedly thwarted by Italian restrictions and taxes and shocked at comparatively outrageous rental costs, I couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. What did Peter mean by “driving for free”? We all know nothing is for free, especially any ex-pat in Italy living on US dollars. So I am writing this article in hopes that maybe others will benefit from this information. I swear I am not getting paid by Volvo, or anyone else to share what I have learned. I am not, however, agajnst taking gifts from anyone who would like to thank me if they benefit! I called the Volvo executive in Rome, Anthony Beasley (a Brit who runs the ex-pat and diplomat program), and this is how the program works. (Certainly other car manufacturers have a similar program, but I started and stopped with Volvo.) You buy the Volvo of your choice, here in Italy. Because you are buying it directly from Volvo you get the invoice price (not the phoney “sticker price”) that you see on the car windows at dealers in the US. The invoice price is the same price that the dealer pays. (And all of the prices are in US dollars.) Then you drive the car while you are in Italy, you are given a license plate, insurance, and whatever else you need to drive here. After a year, you take the car to one of several “dropoff” points in Europe, and other than a nominal prep charge (around 200 euros - depending on where you drop it off), your car is shipped – at no cost – to the Volvo dealer near you in the US or Canada. If you want to keep it here more than a year, there’s a fee, but still a small percentage of what shipping would cost. Maybe, just this once, I can have my cake and eat it too. For more info regarding Volvo’s Expatriate Program contact Anthony Beasley: Tel: 39.06.33235481 abeasley@autostarspa.com
www.theflorentine.net Life in Italy Art Communes with Nature The Chianti Sculpture Park Brenda Moore-McCann Historically, Tuscany is a region that has always been attractive to artists because of its rich cultural heritage, luminous light, and landscape. The sculpture gardens created during the 1980s and 1990s at the Villa Gori near Pistoia, the Giardino dei Tarrocchi at Pescia Fiorentina, or the Giardino di Spoerri at Seggiano, Grossetto, testify to the continuity of this tradition. The Chianti Sculpture Park, which opened last year, is the most recent artistic encounter between the natural Tuscan environment and a broad range of artistic sensibilities. Located just 10 kilometres north of Siena and approximately an hour from Florence, the 35 acres of woodland is home to an international collection of sculptures, the majority of which were specifically made for a site chosen by the artist. Owned by Piero and Rosalba Giadrossi, the park was initially inspired by a visit to Kirstenbosch Park near Cape Town, where a large number of Shona sculptures are on permanent display under the majestic Table Mountain. The Giadrossis have been involved with contemporary art for many years, running the La Fornace Gallery opposite the park, a beautifully restored old pottery in which they have lived for over twenty years. The underlying theme of the park, the harmony between art and nature, is obvious as soon as one arrives at the entrance gates made of wrought iron in the shape of linden leaves. Even at this early stage in its evolution the Chianti Sculpture Park has established an impressive range of international sculptures that expresses the enormous changes that have occurred in art since the second half of the twentieth century. A distinctive feature of the collection is that almost 50 percent of the works are by female artists and that the twenty-four sculptures are drawn from the continents of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe. Each artist has brought to the Tuscan region his/her own cultural background and artistic vision to create a wide range of works with different themes, aims, and materials. Thus there are sculptures made from traditional marble and bronze side Varotsos (Grecia) “Energy” “A distinctive feature of the collection is that almost 50 percent of the works are by female artists and that the twenty-four sculptures are drawn from the continents of Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Europe.” by side with those that have employed newer art materials like neon, glass, found objects, and stainless steel. Bill Furlong’s Off the Beaten Track is one of the latter consisting of sixteen stainless steel cubic boxes placed in pairs along a thirty metre track to the side of the main trail through the wood. While the stainless steel reflects the changing patterns of the surrounding nature, it is not until the visitor walks between the boxes that the artist’s purpose is revealed. Each box emits different sounds which have been pre-recorded and edited by the artist and relate to the nearby city of Siena, whose towers are visible from the entrance to the park. The juxtaposing and mixing of the sounds prevents a linear listening experience and induces a strange sense of bilocation in which the bustling city noises intrude into the quietness of the countryside. A more private experience can be had by entering Pilar Aldana Mendez’s The Time Trap or by resting on Anita Glesta’s ‘couches,’ Dialogue, made of travertine in colours evocative of Siena’s Cathedral. Kei Nakamura’s architectural sculpture, La Casa Nel Bosco (House in the Wood), with its repeated leaf motif, alludes to surrounding nature as well as to pre-historic building processes. Monumental sculptures like The Blue Bridge, Island, Energy, Harmonic Divergence, Balance, La Pietra Sospesa (Suspended Stone), The Keel, Edificio Incompiuto (Incomplete Building), Rainbow Crash, Xaris, 19 Thursday 20 October 2005 The ARTS Marangoni (Italia) ”Rainbow Crash” HaeWon (Corea del Sud) “Island” and Homage to Brancusi, stand alongside more discrete sculptures like Limes, Chianti, The Purifier, and Coin de Bois Blanc (White Wood Corner). Some sculptures have an overtly political theme: Faith and Illusion, The Milk Factory, Por La Libertad de Prensa (Freedom of the Press,), while Dominic Benhura’s children play the international game of leapfrog (Leapfrog) and Neal Barab’s playful marble figures dance to the Beatles’ old song, Twist and Shout. This park, as well as the others above, demonstrates that contemporary sculpture is thriving in an area already famous throughout the world for its treasure chest of Renaissance art. address: La Fornace 48/49 53010 Pievasciata (Siena) phone: (0039) 0577 357151 fax: (0039) 0577 357149 www.chiantisculpturepark.it email: info@chiantisculpturepark.it
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Notorious Vandal Strikes Again - The Florentine

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