On Thursday 11 December 2014, at 18.00, at the Swiss Institute in Milan (via Vecchio Politecnico 3), Noah Stolz's conference will be held, entitled The Orgosolo Laboratory Project.
During his speech, Noah Stolz, curator of I want to see my mountains, a project created as part of "Viavai - Cultural smuggling Switzerland-Lombardy", will use the materials and audio and video documentation collected during the shooting of the film, produced by Stolz himself, “A Mediterranean Cuba” by the Italian-Swiss artist and filmmaker Marco Poloni whose solo exhibition Codename: Osvaldo, case study #20: The Pistol of Monica Ertl.
The Orgosolo Laboratory Project was born with the intention of establishing relationships with the population of Orgosolo, a place which was the scene of a spontaneous representation of resistance to the Italian state between the end of the 60s and the early 70s. The Pratobello revolt was carried out by the citizens of Orgosolo in June 1969, opening in those times a chapter of hope and revenge longed for by many left-wing intellectuals. Among these there was also Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
Many hypotheses have been made about Feltrinelli's stay in Orgosolo; the true event is superimposed by the legend whose features remain unclear. The historical fact, however, consists in the political success that the militants of the Orgosolo Youth Club obtained through the struggle, rejecting the project to establish a NATO shooting range with the sound of demonstrations.
Added to this fact are the mythologies created around the vicissitudes of some bandits and alleged militants from the same region, portrayed by Vittorio de Seta and who have become the symbol of the firm and authentic determination for Sardinian autonomy. It is said that Feltrinelli went specifically to Orgosolo to meet the bandits. In those same years Orgosolo becomes the place of projection of intimate and unbridled desires for utopia by the artists who come there, including the Dionisio Theater Company.
The tradition of the political mural remains in Orgosolo, a local translation of Mexican muralism, but also a tradition that already had popular roots in this region. The city then becomes, albeit with all the paradoxes of the case, an open-air museum, in which the figurative representation serves to express the political ideas of a community or at least of certain parts of it. Gradually, however, what was above all a challenge to the pre-established power became the mediated manifestation of a relationship between the village and the rest of the world. The themes become more international and on some paintings appear brands such as Coca Cola, Kodak and even the seal of the municipality which commissions some murals with partly ambiguous purposes, while the teaching of schools offers workshops in which children paint entire alleys by copying works abstract by famous artists of the past or inspired by the images of globalized popular culture.
At the center of Orgosolo there is the former town hall, a large white building with all the shutters barred, on it some of the most important graffiti and also many shots.
If the historic graffiti transform the building into a monument linked to the Pratobello revolt and the expulsion of the then mayor; the shots instead date from different eras, some date back to historical facts while others testify to a continuous repetition of the gesture in the absence of a real awareness of its origins.
Almost 50 years have passed since the events of Pratobello and the "emptiness of power" that the image of the town hall fully conveys, as well as the meeting with some willing and extremely helpful local people, have pushed Noah Stolz to decide to give rise to a event at the end of the shooting of the film.
The result is precisely the Orgosolo laboratory.
I want to see my mountains is a project carried out as part of "Viavai - Cultural smuggling Switzerland-Lombardy", a binational exchange program promoted by the Swiss Foundation for Culture Pro Helvetia and implemented in partnership with the cantons Ticino and Valais, the city of Zurich, the Ernst Göhner Foundation and with the patronage of the Departments of Culture of the Lombardy Region and the Municipality of Milan.
The event, structured in three stages, is already experiencing its first appointment with the solo exhibition of the Italian-Swiss artist Marco Poloni who presents, until 20 December 2014 at the Swiss Institute in Milan (via Vecchio Politecnico), the cycle Codename : Osvaldo and will continue, from 7 February to 15 March 2015 at the MA*GA Museum in Gallarate and at the Museo Cantonale in Lugano, from 14 February to 15 March 2015, with the exhibition that gives the entire project its title.
