Hypermaremma inaugurated its second edition on July 26th, with a revised program featuring the site-specific installation by artist Massimo Uberti. The work, designed for the Terre di Sacra, triumphs over the naturalistic oasis of Lake Burano and invites the observer to reflect on the relationship between man and landscape.
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Hypermaremma is an innovative cultural project designed for the promotion of contemporary art within the Maremma area in southern Tuscany. The project was launched in 2019 by Giorgio Galotti, gallery owner and creator of the DAMA project in Turin, and Carlo Pratis, founder of Operativa Gallery in Rome, in collaboration with Lorenzo Bassetti, Matteo d’Aloja and Massimo Mininni. Intended as a promotion tool for contemporary art, the project showcases a plurality of events and installations within the Tuscan area, which since the 1980s has recorded a growth in tourism due to its fascinating landscape and its archaeological beauty. Hypermaremma aims to create a dialogue between place and works of art, where public installations, sound experiences, performances and artists talks have the ultimate goal of unlocking the cultural and artistic potential of the Maremma territory.
Last year, the first edition was developed in three chapters and unfolded in six different moments in a time period between April and September with a full-bodied program showcasing numerous artists. This year, following the government-issued guidelines for the pandemic, the initial plan for the 2020 edition has been entirely redesigned. The new program is consolidated into a single piece in the Terre di Sacra, located in the naturalistic oasis of Lake Burano, a former hunting reserve in the municipality of Capalbio, later managed by the WWF and recognized as a Zone of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention. Here, in this rural lagoon surrounded by coastal dunes and the Mediterranean Macchia, the neon inscription by Massimo Uberti, Spazio Amato (Beloved Space), triumphs over the environment.
The artist Massimo Uberti is renowned for his luminous installations, in which the represented objects appear as three-dimensional drawings made of light. The selected work for the 2020 edition of Hypermaremma is a large neon installation that breaks into the immutability of the Maremma territory for a brief moment, through an evanescent and poetic apparition. The caption Spazio Amato is affixed in the perspective of the landscape, as to invite the observer to reflect on the relationship between man and landscape, on the need to protect and preserve the environment and on how we define our "loved" places and spaces.
The installation is visible from the street, for the viewers who cross the street by walk or by bike, as well as from the train. In this way, the artwork aims to become a tribute to that part of the territory that is observed with melancholy or with a thrill of pleasure, that is photographed and shared, and that makes each of us reflect in silence. In short, it is a luminous declaration of love for the landscape. A presence that will accompany, during the summer, all those who live in Maremma and will spend their holidays there.