On Sunday 4 August at 11 a.m., appointments with contemporary art continue at the Museum of Organic Environmental Art in the Limbara Park.
The exhibitions ‘allafinedellarcobaleno’ by sculptor Alex Pinna and ‘Frammenti di Sardegna’ by photographer Vittorio Ruggero inaugurate the new cycle of exhibitions, which can be visited until 18 September.
A few kilometres from the centre of Tempio Pausania, in the Bosco di Curadureddu, the exhibition activities of Organica, the museum ofenvironmental art dedicated to contemporary art and photography, continue under the artistic direction of Giannella Demuro.
Sunday 4 August will begin at 11 a.m. with the inauguration of the personal exhibition ‘allafinedellarcobaleno’, by artist Alex Pinna, curated by Ivo Serafino Fenu. The room dedicated to photography will host the exhibition Frammenti di Sardegna (Fragments of Sardinia), a photographic reportage dedicated to the history of the Trenino verde della Sardegna ( Green train of Sardinia) in its historical Tempio-Palau route with images taken from Vittorio Ruggero‘s photographic archive.
The solo exhibition dedicated to the Ligurian sculptor Alex Pinna displays a collection of works that investigate the concept of nature using different canons and hybrid languages. These are either stuffed mice that invade the museum spaces – inviting visitors to play and interact with an artist who continues to remain a child and a Pied Piper – or large threadlike sculptures and wall-mounted works that recall the poetics of recent years. “The move away from the colourful and unreal spectrum of the fantasy world of the first production,” writes Fenu, “has become more and more marked and the relationship with nature and with life in general has become more intimate, fragile and melancholic: a world of lines that acquire the concreteness of form without losing the lightness of the sign, lyrical fragments of a precarious existential condition, like leaves. They are beings elongated to the limit of the possible, almost filiform, consubstantial to a leaf, at once home and world, sometimes uterine, sometimes a springboard towards an impassable and feared void. Beings that have an ancient history and noble fathers: from the most mysterious Etruria to Giacometti, from the graphism of the endless alphabets of Emilio Scanavino – also from Liguria – to the precarious and dancing balances of Calder, to arrive at the oblique, metaphysical, absolute spaces, catalysts of worlds and of a suspended time, inhabited by the hybrid and androgynous creatures of Gino De Dominicis, for whom art, as for Alex Pinna, was and remains a magical act. Bronzes, wood, rope, fabric and even leaves dominate the interior of the Museo Organica. They are silent but not mute materials, in their turn and in their own way ‘organic’ that impose meditation and sharing, a participation free from a certain mannerist environmentalism that induces the observer to become bronze, wood, rope or leaf and to listen.
Alex Pinna (Imperia 1967) lives and works in Milan. Having graduated in painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where he now holds the chair of sculpture, he immediately focused his production on sculpture, using heterogeneous materials. He began exhibiting in 1993, participating in solo and group exhibitions in numerous Italian and international galleries and public spaces. Abroad, his work has been presented in Shanghai, Tel Aviv, London, New York, Los Angeles, Monte Carlo, Cologne and Lugano. His latest exhibitions include: ‘Time’ at the Museum of Archaeology of the University of Pavia (2023), ‘Sali’ at the Port of Tropea (2020), ‘Twixt Land & Sea: Tales” at Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti in Bologna (2018), “Estate Italiana” at the MOAH in Lancaster, California (2017), “Biennale le latitudini dell’arte” at the Vigado Museum, Budapest (2017) and “Ti guardo, mi guardo” at the Rocco Guglielmo Foundation in Catanzaro (2012), “Italian Sculpture of the 20th Century” at the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation, Milan (2010).
Alongside Alex Pinna’s exhibition, 4 August will also see the opening of the exhibition ‘Frammenti di Sardegna – La ‘tratta’ Tempio-Palau nell’Archivio fotografico Ruggero’ (Fragments of Sardinia – The Tempio-Palau ‘leg’ in the Ruggero Photographic Archive), by Tempio photographer and journalist Vittorio Ruggero.
The ‘Tempio-Palau’ is a segment of the Sassari-Palau railway line, itself part of the ‘ Trenino Verde’ railway, as Europe’s oldest railway network is now called, which has been connecting the island’s communities for more than 130 years. An impressive work of engineering, which the exhibition recounts as a reportage in the passage of years and history. The 59-kilometre-long route starts in Tempio Pausania, passes through Luras, Calangianus, the Lake of Liscia Sant’Antonio, until it reaches the north-eastern coast, Arzachena and Palau. The images document the railway itinerary that crosses Gallura, joining the mountains to the sea: a journey through time, into the hidden heart of the island, to discover villages and territories characterised by extraordinary, uncontaminated and little-known natural landscapes. Old decommissioned tracks, railway stations that preserve traces of the past, imposing engines corroded by rust and time, waiting rooms and workshops where time seems to be suspended, the gesture of a stationmaster, travellers and tourists, unusual views and angles filmed from the moving train mingle with fragments of everyday life.
The images on display are extracted from the impressive photographic archive made up of negatives, black and white and colour photos, slides, and paper material, collected and digitised by Ruggero in over 50 years of activity, precious testimonies dating from 1800 to the present day and representing the historical memory of the life of the Gallura communities, a heritage to be preserved and handed over to the future.
Vittorio Ruggero (Tempio Pausania, 1957) photographer and journalist, has created a rich archive over several decades, collecting around half a million photographs, reproductions, letterpress prints, negatives and slides depicting Sardinia. Ruggero discovered his passion for photography as a child, fascinated by photos from newspapers and magazines. As a teenager, he received his first camera, a plastic Comet, as a gift from his father, and from there he began to immortalise scenes of everyday life. After graduating, he began working with the newspaper La Nuova Sardegna, using a Rolleiflex, a professional camera, for his shots, with which he also began his countless collection of portraits. Even today, Ruggero still travels around Sardinia looking for and collecting photos (‘I have already visited more than 300 municipalities out of a total of 377, I hope to touch them all’) with the aim of making a collection representing the island’s memory available to everyone. In 2024, the Municipality of Tempio Pausania acquired part of the archive consisting of material representing the city and the territory from the 19th century to the present day.
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All Organica events are held on the slopes of Mount Limbara, near Tempio Pausania: in the Curadureddu forest and at the CEDAP – Centre for Education and Documentation on the Environment and Landscape.
The CEDAP space has two exhibition rooms, one dedicated to contemporary art and the other to photography, and is also an information point for hiking, environmental and cultural activities in the area.
Guided tours of the Museum of Environmental Art can be organised for small groups by appointment.
The locality can be reached from Tempio, Olbia and Sassari along the SS 392 state road, and then on foot along one of the evocative paths that lead into the Limbara forests.
Organica – museum of environmental art in the Limbara Park is a project of the cultural association tramedarte with the artistic direction of Giannella Demuro and realised in collaboration with the Municipality of Tempio Pausania, the Foundation of Sardinia, the Region of Sardinia, FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Salude & Trigu, Fo.Re.S.T.A.S., the Italian Touring Club, the DECA Pro Master’s degree course at the University of Sassari, the Sassari Academy of Fine Arts ‘Mario Sironi’, cultural associations and the partners Escursì.com, Confcommercio Nord Sardegna, Gallura Mia srl, Hotel Pausania Inn, La Baita Limbara.
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city: Tempio Pausania (SS)
location: Monte Limbara | locality Curadureddu / CEDAP – Centro di Educazione e Documentazione Ambientale e Paesaggistica del Limbara (SS 392 Tempio-Oschiri)
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Press kit (press release, photos)
