Arts at the Italian Palace

Upon entering the courtyard, visitors would come across the bold juxtaposition of two women: Carpo and Jennifer – female figures separated by two thousand years of history. On the one side Carpo, the Classic canon of ideal beauty and perfection; and on the opposite side Jennifer, its contemporary desecration. Carpo is a life-size sculpture crafted from the finest Carrara marble in the first century AD (unkown author), the piece was loaned out to the Italian Pavilion by the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. It portrays one of the Horai, female deities associated with the fertility of the soil. According to Greek mythology, these daughters of Zeus and Themis guarded the seasons, protecting and nourishing the fruits of the earth to ensure a plentiful harvest. Near the proud and solemn figure of Carpo visitors could admire the naked body of Jennifer, especially sculpted for the Italian Pavilion by contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft. Jennifer represents the humiliated body of a woman, confined between marbleblocks, violated and crucified. The impossible dialogue between Carpo and Jennifer represents a daring and intriguing juxtaposition which invites visitors to think over the status of women both in present and past times. 

La Vucciria - R. Guttuso - 1974 - cm 300 x 300, Oil on canvas, 300 × 300 cm - Palermo, Palazzo Steri. The Vucciria, one of the most ancient and famous of the Palermo markets, always had a strong fascination for Renato Guttuso who passed through it on the way to school and often stopped there to taste the poor but extraordinary “street food”, which in Sicily has amazing tradition and variety. The sound universe of the market, represented by the cries of the sellers, but also by the murmur of the buyers, together with the visual emotions, highlighted by the colour of the goods displayed and the stimulating odours of the meat and fish but also of the street food being continually prepared, vividly struck the imagination of Renato Guttuso: “I remember the Vucciria from when I was a boy and came from Bagheria to study in Palermo. I went down the steps of via Roma into Piazza Caracciolo and came out in piazza San Domenico. This blast of popular culture, the sounds, the lights and voices were enough to put my mind into a different register. Without knowing it, perhaps without wanting it, those wicker baskets full of fruit and great semicircles of fish laid out on the marble tops of the fishmongers stamped themselves on my eyes.” La Vucciria, on loan to the Italian Pavilion from Palermo University is hosted at Palazzo Steri.