The Sicilian capital continues to affirm itself as a city dedicated to contemporary art with its multifaceted array of events and exhibitions, such as the ephemeral artwork If Memory Has a Future, created by Milanese artist Stefania Gesualdo, on display at the Oratorio di San Lorenzo.
Stefania Gesualdo, “Se la memoria ha un futuro”, artwork and performance, 2024. Photo & Courtesy Maurizio Zambito Oratorio San Lorenzo, Palermo
The event opened on October 16, showcasing a monumental tapestry (268 x 197 cm) that reproduces Caravaggio’s renowned Nativity, entirely hand-stitched and presented to commemorate the theft of this famous painting, which occurred between the night of October 17 and 18, 1969. The piece marks the conclusion of Gesualdo’s artist residency, organized by the Amici dei Musei Siciliani, exploring the themes of memory and loss.
Stefania Gesualdo, “Se la memoria ha un futuro”, artwork and performance, 2024. Oratorio San Lorenzo, Palermo. Photo & Courtesy Maurizio Zambito
The project draws inspiration from Leonardo Sciascia’s book, A futura memoria, a work compiling writings “about certain crimes, a certain administration of justice, and the Mafia.” The artist grounded her research and creation of this tapestry in a strong desire for truth and justice, confronting the many unresolved mysteries of Italian history. Among these, the fate of Caravaggio’s Nativity remains shrouded in the murky testimonies of various Mafia informants, further deepening the mystery surrounding this theft. In response to the failures of an era lacking in transparency and honesty, the artist has entrusted almost a kilometer of pearl-thread embroidery—created over 185 hours of labor—with her vision of the ephemeral. Yet, she granted no immortality to this tapestry, nor any lasting permanence. Shortly after its public presentation, framed in its original setting, the artist initiated a powerful, evocative performance of “unthreading” her own work, a process that ended on October 17 and will remain visible in the anti-oratory until November 20. Following this “destruction,” a luminous inscription, A futura memoria, appeared, leaving the frame in an opaque, mysterious darkness—the same that once engulfed the famous 17th-century painting. Only the traces of the figures remain where the thread once passed, with the inscription A futura memoria visible on the altar until December 24.
Stefania Gesualdo, “Se la memoria ha un futuro”, artwork and performance, 2024. Oratorio San Lorenzo, Palermo. Photo & Courtesy Maurizio Zambito
“The work of Stefania Gesualdo,” commented Bernardo Tortorici di Raffadali, President of the Amici dei Musei Siciliani, “has profoundly moved us. Through her project, we commemorated not only the stolen Nativity but also its absence, with an incredible emotional impact. It was an experience that left a lasting impression, a memory meant to endure.” Additionally, Gesualdo remarked that the title itself serves as “a reminder, a note of concern that is extremely relevant in a historical and political moment when current conflicts seem to have no memory of history.” She added that “when we speak of what remains, the concept implies a void, something that once was but is no longer—like Caravaggio’s painting. It thus becomes a state of change, transformation, or adaptation marked by fragility.”
Stefania Gesualdo, “Se la memoria ha un futuro”, artwork and performance, 2024. Oratorio San Lorenzo, Palermo. Photo & Courtesy Maurizio Zambito
On one hand, her choice underscores liminality and precariousness, misdeeds and obscurity; on the other, it highlights the urgent need to redefine the threads of memory, challenging the value of time in an act that transforms the painting into performance, presence, absence, metamorphosis. As Pasolini once did, denouncing the need for a critical, conscious memory to prevent the repetition of past mistakes, artist Stefania Gesualdo has imbued the sense of the ephemeral and dissolution with gravity, leaving the severed threads as relics on the floor. The project’s strength also lies in reclaiming the memory of Caravaggio’s Nativity from a rare, unconventional perspective to reflect on the meanings of memory and loss, especially in the indifference of a society whose historical threads are already unraveled, destroyed, and whose tangle of memories lies inert, exposed. Thus, it falls to art to reshape oblivion and ensure that what remains on the margins does not become part of a dark, crystalline everyday life.
Nilla Zaira D’Urso
Info:
Stefania Gesualdo. Se la memoria ha un futuro
17/10/2024 – 20/11/2024
Oratorio di San Lorenzo
Via Immacolatella, 15 Palermo
Opening hours: daily from 10:00 to 18:00.
Admission: €3
info@amicimuseisiciliani.it Tel: +39 091 6118168
www.amicimuseisiciliani.it
Through art she feels the need to get closer to nature, deciding to create an artistic residence on Etna as a “refuge for contemporary art” for artists and scholars. Thus was born Nake artistic residence. She won the Responsible Etna Award 2015. In 2017, she was invited to the Sala Zuccari, Senate of the Republic, as an art critic. She writes for Italian and foreign artists. Curator of the first Museum of Contemporary Art of Etna and of the “Contemporary Etna” project.
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