The Great Exhibitions of Matera 2019

The title of European Capital of Culture was created in 1985 with the aim of bringing European citizens closer together and since then has had a growing cultural and socio-economic impact on the areas concerned. On 17 October 2014, Matera, along with the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, was named as the capital for 2019. The slogan chosen for its cultural programme is "open future"; to underline how in a society obsessed with the present, an ancient city like Matera can convey a message of trust in the future, so many times when it has been redesigned and has emerged from each challenge as the victor, as the four major exhibitions inaugurated in 2019 tell us.

'The Renaissance as seen from the South' is one of 2019's most beautiful narratives. Through more than 180 works from Italian and European museums, starting from the Mediterranean basin and then back up to Provence and Flanders, we discover a completely different story of our country's artistic heritage. The works arrived at Palazzo Lanfranchi, already majestic in their uniqueness, and were further enhanced thanks to a creative layout, creating with the visitor a game of references and visual stimuli that lead them to observe each work from different points of view. The exhibition, opened in April, was awarded the gold medal of the President of the Italian Republic after only three weeks.

The exhibition curated by Piergiorgio Odifreddi, is a tribute to the mathematical genius of Pythagoras who, according to legend, died in the area of what is now Policoro. 'The Poetry of Primes' consists of five exhibitions, three in Matera, in the Palazzo Acito spaces, and two in Metaponto, but it is not limited to these: through conferences, workshops and shows, the public is invited to approach mathematics in a natural way, recognising the undeniable link between art, thought and science, even going so far as to admit that this link is precisely with humans themselves as part of the animal kingdom.

The human being is part of nature, but at the same time its manipulator: the term 'anthropocene' was used for the first time by the Nobel Prize winner Paul Cruzen to define the geological era in which man becomes the architect of the geographic and climatic changes of our planet. Having received a commission from the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2013 to carry out an investigation, followed by collaborations with international artistic and scientific institutions, for the first time ever the film maker Armin Linke presents an organic narrative of the work done together with Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi. "Blind sensorium is the last great exhibition of Matera 2019".