Mimmo Paladino, In the sign of the cross on display from 20 July in Bondo (TN)

Mimmo Paladino, master of the Italian Trans-avantgarde, will be on display from 20 July 2013 in the ancient church of San Barnaba in Bondo (TN), near Madonna di Campiglio with a project entitled "In the Sign of the Cross".

Mimmo Paladino's work exhibited in Bondo from 20 July is a large triptych, a true mystical masterpiece on the theme of the cross, with a base of almost four meters next to a site-specific installation hoisted in the vault of the presbytery.

In addition to the two monumental interventions by Mimmo Paladino, it will be possible to admire a selection of large woodcuts engraved by the master and taken from his famous portfolio of prints from 1986, Lacrimosa, also on the evangelical themes of the Crucifixion and the Lamentation.

The dialogue between ancient and contemporary, between Mimmo Paladino and the masters of the past to whom his gaze ideally turns, will be triggered, thanks to a scenographic setting made up of lights and deep shadows, in the play of references between his works and a carved wooden crucifix of the fifteenth century, of the school beyond the Alps, in addition to the splendid cards engraved by Marc Chagall in the series of The Bible. The exhibition will thus be enriched by the collateral exhibition of some works by the Russian master of Jewish origin, exhibited in the old Sacristy of the Church of San Barnaba.

The project, entitled "In the sign of the cross, Mimmo Paladino” – was made possible thanks to the now consolidated collaboration between the Municipality of Bondo and the Zanetti Art Studio – is curated by Chiara Gatti, Andrea Dall'Asta and Mario Zanetti, with the support of the San Fedele cultural center in Milan and the patronage of the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Autonomous Region of Trentino Alto Adige.

For the entire duration of the exhibition there will be events, meetings and interventions by historians, art critics, philosophers, artists and architects, including Mimmo Paladino and Mario Botta himself, called to discuss sacred art, between ancient tradition and contemporaries:

Saturday August 17th the work of the young artist Nicola Villa (Lecco 1976), already author, alongside Paladino, of a cycle of works intended for the new Ambrosian Evangeliary will be inaugurated. Nicola Villa, from 13 to 17 August, will carry out the intervention directly on site as part of a real-time painting workshop open to the public, who will be able to admire the creation of the painting live.

While on August 17 the winners of the competition will be awardedBetween art and poetry, double competition of painting/sculpture and poetry created on the occasion of the exhibition. The first – reserved for artists active in the area and coordinated by the curators of the exhibition – provides for the setting up of an "open atelier" in Bondo where the selected artists will be able, over the course of a week, to create their own work under the guidance of Nicholas Villa. The second competition, coordinated by the sculptor and poet Alberto Ghinzani, director of the Museo della Permanente in Milan, is dedicated to poetry and includes a workshop for young poets on the theme of the exhibition. During the awards evening the great Italian poet Patricia Valduga, founder in 1988 of the monthly magazine Poetry, will be the protagonist of a reading.