Fototeca Palermitana

A Visual Campaign

In 2018, the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History elected Palermo as the venue of its annual Field School, a set of two scholarly excursions involving, respectively, fellows of the Institute and a group of twelve graduate and post-graduate applicants from around the world. On this occasion, a major photographic campaign was commissioned by the institute’s Photographic Collection to contribute to the visual documentation of the city. Over 600 professional photographs were produced encompassing art and architecture from the Middle Ages up to the contemporary. Produced by Roberto Sigismondi, this corpus covers the objects under scrutiny during the Field School and simultaneously aims to fill specific gaps in the photographic coverage of the city and its surroundings for the use of researchers worldwide. It is informed by the Field School’s specific focus on Palermo’s migration history and diverse cultural production, under the heading of »Coexistence in Flux«.

Since its foundation, the port city of Palermo has been defined by a nomadic gaze. Thanks to its focal position in the Mediterranean, the city has experienced manifold and mixed flows of populations, from the early Greek, Latin, Jewish, Arab, Norman, Spanish and Peninsular to the more recent African, Middle Eastern and transoceanic ones propelled by global imbalances. The motto of the city’s genius loci, »Panormus conca aurea suos devorat alienos nutrit« (»Palermo the golden dell, devours hers and feeds the foreigners«), speaks to the power of absorption that made Palermo one of the most complex cultural palimpsests of the Mediterranean.

In 2018, the city entered a new phase of reflection on its past, present, and future as the host city of Manifesta, the nomadic European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In line with the Biennial’s institutional profile, Manifesta 12 was conceived by its creative mediators as a locally involved platform for debates on pressing contemporary issues. Under the theme »The Planetary Garden – Cultivating Coexistence«, the exhibition intends to discuss and induce coexistence at multiple scales, from the local to the planetary, electing Palermo as its paradigmatic site. The Bibliotheca Hertziana’s Field School »Coexistence in Flux« proposed to contribute to this reflection by approaching »coexistence« from an art historical perspective, engaging with the city’s artistic heritage as well as its current resonance in the exhibitionary field. In this process, a critical approach to the modes of thinking and acting created within the exhibition provided the impetus for reconsidering the city’s artistic past and present, and vice versa.

Below, a selection of 25 photographs exemplifies the campaign’s breadth and variety.

Palermo, the port and Monte Pellegrino in the background. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — View of Palermo

The interior of the grotto of Santa Rosalia. The shrine of Santa Rosalia, patron saint of Palermo, is built in a rock crevice at the top of Monte Pellegrino. It sanctifies the place of the miraculous rediscovery of the saint’s bones on July 15th, 1624. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Shrine of Santa Rosalia

The crypt of Lanza di Trabia, built after 1617 in the left transept of the church of Santa Cita or San Massimiliano. The marble intarsia decoration was completed in 1689. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Church of Santa Cita

The oratory of Santa Cita. The oratory room was entirely decorated by Giacomo Serpotta between 1686 and 1718. The southern wall incorporates a depiction of the battle of Lepanto. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Oratory of Santa Cita

The interior of the Oratory of the Rosary of San Domenico seen from the entrance. At the request of the Compagnia della Madonna del Rosario, the oratory was built from 1574 beside the church of San Domenico following designs by the architect Giuseppe Giacalone. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Oratory of the Rosary of San Domenico

Counter-façade of the Oratory of the Rosary of San Domenico, details. The stucco sculptures and decorations were executed by Giacomo Serpotta between 1714 and 1717. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Oratory of the Rosary of San Domenico

The Western side of the court of Palazzo Abatellis, with a view of the atrium and the main entrance of the palace. The building, designed by the architect Matteo Carnelivari, dates back to 1475 and is currently home to the Galleria Regionale. Severely damaged during the Second World War, it was restored in 1954 by the architect Carlo Scarpa. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Galleria Regionale Palazzo Abatellis

Carlo Scarpa’s restoration of Palazzo Abatellis. The fragmentary mosaic is inserted in a plaster panel. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Palazzo Abatellis

Carlo Scapra’s intervention in Palazzo Abatellis. Room of Antonello da Messina’s Annunciation. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Palazzo Abatellis

Carlo Scarpa’s intervention in Palazzo Abatellis. Room of Francesco Laurana’s bust of Elaeonora of Aragon. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Palazzo Abatellis

The castle of La Zisa. Surrounded by vast gardens and stretches of water, the seasonal palace of the Norman kings takes its name from the Arabic al-Azīz (“the splendid”). It is a major example of Fatimid architecture of the twelfth century. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Castle of La Zisa

The church of San Cataldo seen from Piazza Bellini. Built around 1160, it was largely restored to its original shape at the end of the nineteenth century. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Church of San Cataldo

View of Piazza Bellini. On the left, the Teatro Bellini under restoration; in the center, the church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, also known as the Martorana; on the right, the church of San Cataldo. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Piazza Bellini

View of the Pretoria Fountain bythe Florentine sculptor Francesco Camilliani (1554-55) at the center of the evocative eponymous square. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Pretoria Fountain

The Genius of Piazza Rivoluzione or Fountain of the Genio in Palermo’s Fieravecchia quarter is a sixteenth-century statue dedicated to the city’s genius loci resting on a nineteenth-century fountain. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Fountain of the Genio

Giovanni Falcone e Paolo Borsellino, a large mural painting executed on the façade of the Nautical Institute on via Cala. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — The mural Giovanni Falcone e Paolo Borsellino

The Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa (formerly Officine Ducrot), view of the outside of the Sala Bausch/CRE.ZI.PLUS. Together with the former Chimica Arenella, the Cantieri Culturali are among the major examples of industrial archaeology in Palermo. Photo: Roberto Sigismondi — Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa

Manifesta 12, detail of the installation Signal Flow by Laura Poitras in Palazzo Forcella De Seta. The Palazzo is one of the most significant architectural examples of nineteenth-century Palermitan ecclecticism. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Manifesta 12 in Palazzo Forcella De Seta

Manifesta 12, detail of the installation Theatre of the Sun by Fallen Fruit in Palazzo Butera. Located in the ancient quarter of La Kalsa, the palace’s architectural configuration dates back to the eighteenth century. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Manifesta 12 in Palazzo Butera

The Casa del Mutilato, built in 1936 in rationalistic style by the architect Giuseppe Spatrisano. On the occasion of Manifesta 12, the building houses the video installation Unending Lightning by the artist Cristina Lucas. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Casa del Mutilato

The conference room of the Palazzo delle Poste, a building designed by Angiolo Mazzoni and inaugurated by the fascist government in 1934. On the walls five canvases by Benedetta Cappa Marinetti glorify the technical means of communication, while Futurist curtains, copper handles and wide marble grilles the world of aeronautics. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Palazzo delle Poste

The Palazzo delle Poste, designed by Angiolo Mazzoni, was commissioned by the fascist government and built between 1929 and 1934. The monumental staircase is clad in Trapani red marble and Belgian black marble. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Palazzo delle Poste

The Grande Cretto, a monumental work by Alberto Burri, renders the urban plan of the old town of Gibellina, a village entirely destroyed by the Belice earthquake in 1968. Built between 1984 and 1989 and completed only in 2015 on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of the artist, the monument incorporates the ruins of the old town within blocks of white cement that reach up to eye level and are interspersed by a network of walkable pathways. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — The Grande Cretto of Alberto Burri in Gibellina

The cement blocks of Burri’s Cretto and the surrounding hills. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — The Grande Cretto of Alberto Burri in Gibellina

Gibellina Nuova seen from the Piazza del Municipio. On the left, the Torre Civica (1987) by Alessandro Mendini; on the right, the spherical cupola of the Chiesa Madre (1972) by Ludovico Quaroni. After the traumatic destruction of Gibellina in 1968, the village was rebuilt about eleven kilometers away from its original site and enhanced through the works of various artists, including Carla Accardi, Mimmo Rotella, Mimmo Paladino and Mario Schifano. Photo: Tristan Weddigen — Gibellina Nuova

Project: Maria Bremer, Tristan Weddigen, David Zagoury
Texts: Maria Bremer, David Zagoury
Photographers: Roberto Sigismondi, Tristan Weddigen
Implementation: Tatjana Bartsch

12.12.2018

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