As a multi-disciplinary itinerant exhibition project, ‘GENESIS’ stems from the synergy of artists from Lucania, dialoguing ‘presences’ in the universe of creativity to which Porta Coeli, International Art Gallery and Study Centre for Mediterranean Culture, opens a gateway also thanks to the generous support of the Agenzia di Promozione Territoriale (APT) of the Basilicata Region.

Within the framework of this initiative, fostering plurality and excellence in the arts, Aniello Ertico’s video, Scirocco alla controra, has given breath of life to the lines of his book, Scirocco (2015). Playing the leading role of Makeda is the many-awarded French-Algerian actress Nadia Kibout. In the video the Queen of Sheba is willing to encounter King Solomon, thus trespass the symbolic portal to his realm – Salvatore Comminiello’s Controra diptych. During her live performance, Kibout is going to wear the Ankitatiara made by Antonella Rubertone in collaboration with Antonio Saluzzi, whose Anàstasis is on display. The alchemy between trees and human bodies taking shape within this bronze sculpture can also be seen in Sôma Pneumatikón, installation photography by Salvatore Laurenzana, who masterly immortalises the play of resemblances between human beings and Nature.

Donato Linzalata responds with Pandora, a wooden texture female figure in harmony with the cosmos. Also reminding us of the primordial forces of the Earth is Nicola Divietri with his Gaia, chiselled in copper. 

Memory spans myth from classical antiquity as well as the biblical story of Adam and Eve Adam thanks to Nisio Lopergolo’s,Mnemosyne and Original Sin. The Inert Waiting ceramic sculpture, made with the lucignolo technique by this master, who has rediscovered ancient secrets of craftsmanship, appears to stand in between light and shadow, and hint at a heritage from the time in which Pythagoras lived in Metaponto. 

Not inert at all, instead, is the expectancy of childbirth, the genesis par excellence represented by Paola Salvia with her Signs of Life. ‘Rising star’ in the ‘galaxy’ of Porta Coeli, this young artist crystallises into evocative abstraction the energy of a life becoming flesh and blood as being nourished – not only physically – by his/her mother. 

By fostering a live and enlivening dialogue between artists working in their home land, yet opening their minds and hearts to other cultures as well, Porta Coeli supports cultural actors playing roles in a ‘genesis’ of art while striving for their own, possible, creative lives.