Smiling buildings, trails of giant snails, plastic birds and pop-up performance art: see these and more interesting installations as Siena launches its Week of Contemporary Culture, taking place from October 9 to 17.
International artists, among them Florence celebrity Clet Abraham, Chinese performance artist Xu Hong Fei and English director David Glass, will transform Siena into an open-air contemporary art museum and theatrical venue, inviting residents and visitors alike to look at familiar (and unfamiliar) spaces in a new light and encounter art in unexpected places.
The Week of Contemporary Culture celebrates Siena’s designation as one of five Capitals of Italian Culture for 2015, along with Perugia, Cagliari, Ravenna and Lecce. Siena’s councillor for culture, Massimo Vedovelli, commented, ‘We wanted to make contemporary artistic expression a prominent part of our [Capital of Italian Culture] initiatives and to make participatory planning a reality … Galleries and artists are involved, but so are musicians, actors, performers and dancers, and they have worked to develop the programming for months.’
Noteworthy exhibitions and installations include Clet Abraham’s Siena Smiles, in which Palazzo Pubblico’s façade grins at passers-by, the Cracking Art collective’s plastic animal sculptures around the city and, at the Santa Maria della Scala complex, an exhibition of contemporary architecture with related events, including performances, workshops and talks.
The events during the week also include aperitivos with participating artists and Siena’s first Contemporary White Night (October 10). In addition, a shuttle will take visitors to various spaces of related interest, including several towns outside Siena.
