Notorious Vandal Strikes Again - The Florentine

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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