CONCEPT: ALTERATION
Three hundred years ago, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier (1722), a work that signaled the birth of modern music. The 24 preludes and fugues, one composed in every key, create an ordered system of the endless possible harmonic combinations. Bach’s so-called tonal system is closed, hierarchical, and yet forms the basis of all musical thought, in every genre from Baroque to hip-hop. But rules are there to be broken.
Alteration, in music theory, is the temporary suspension of the strict rules of the tonal system: a sharp or a flat momentarily changes the key, subverts the points of reference and expands the expressive possibilities in infinite ways.
The breaking of rules is therefore a space of freedom, in which the infinite varieties of creative individuality can express themselves. Alteration is the space that is determined in the dialectic relationship between creative genius and pre-conceived forms, as well as between individuals and social structures. This conflict in the present day reaches its apogee: formal structures are constantly brought into question, hybridised, reinterpreted, inverted, derided. Indeed, altered.
Since its inception, photography has been a field in which this conflict expresses itself to the maximum. Art that arises from technology, ideologically bound, in some way, to a positivist adherence to reality, in practice not only interprets the world, but modifies, transforms, alters it. Technological development is the equivalent of sharpening a musical note for photographic technique. From analogue photography to digital photography, from wet plate collodion to artificial intelligence, from film to augmented reality, photography is ontologically speaking an art of experimentation. And today it is a bridge that creates connections with other artforms, in a geometric progression of combinations, with the aim of creating under its own gaze alternative, artificial, constructed, disjointed and re-arranged worlds. The gaze understands reality only in the moment in which it alters it, dramatically expanding its innumerable interpretations.
EXHIBITIONS
SPECIAL PROJECTS
FOTOGRAFIA SPAZIO APERTO
Triennale Milano
Fotografia Spazio Aperto is an Open Call promoted in collaboration with Triennale Milano; it stems from a reflection on what it means to reinterpret the public space with the aim of hosting temporary site-specific installations in a multidisciplinary and inclusive perspective.
For the first time in Italy, contemporary photography and architecture dialogue structurally, to design innovative and immersive multidimensional exhibitions, looking at public space not as a simple void, but as a place in which seeking deep connections with the territory and stimulating participation.
A photographer and an architect, selected by the jury, spent a residency in Gibellina (Sicily) to design an open air and site-specific installation held during the fourth edition of the Festival. Part of the Call, also the workshop “Curatorial Practices in Public Space” to be held in Milan at Triennale.
The aim of the workshop is to explore the relationships between photography and architecture, in order to better conceptualize temporary exhibitions. In doing so, it will activate new synergies encouraging the participation of the public.
WINNERS 1° EDITION
Luca Massaro (photographer) and Anna Merci (architect), Agorà
IMAGINARIUM Strategia Fotografia
2022/DGCC – Italian Minister of Culture
“IMAGINARIUM: new productions and experimentations in contemporary Italian photography” is one of the projects selected by the Italian Ministry of Culture’s Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity for the #StrategiaFotografia2022.
The new works by four Italian artists – Alessandra Calò, Nicolò Degiorgis , Giorgio Di Noto, Valentina Vannicola – made in residence in Favignana, are premiered during the fourth edition of the festival in Gibellina, and then donated to the Tonnara di Favignana (Trapani).
The network of partners: On Image Association, Municipality of Favignana, Municipality of Gibellina, Orestiadi Foundation, MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Planches Contact Festival, FORMAT International Photography Festival, Visual Srl, MiArte.
Nicolò Degiorgis, Blue as Gold (New Chapter)
Giorgio di Noto, Stratificazioni
Valentina Vannicola, Terra Cava
PERMANENT COLLECTION PHOTOGRAPHY
Fondazione Orestiadi
The festival is made of ephemeral works; in order to keep its history in a physical location, this year we inaugurate the new “photography section” of the Permanent Collection of the Orestiadi Foundation, one of the most important collections in Southern Italy. Many of the artists who have created installations presented at festival in recent years have donated one of their works to leave a trace of their passage through the city, and we believe many will continue to do so in the future. The Photography Collection is curated by Arianna Catania.
Orestiadi Foundation was founded in 1992 to enhance the heritage of cultural activities expressed by the city of Gibellina starting from the rebirth, following the devastating earthquake of 1968. Founded and directed by Ludovico Corrao until 2011, the Foundation holds one of the most important contemporary art collections in Italy. The Foundation organizes the Gibellina Orestiadi Festival, an annual exhibition of contemporary theater, contemporary dance, music and visual arts, now in its 40th edition.
ARTISTS
Terje Abusdal
Andrea Alessandrini
Oskar Alvarado
Andrea & Magda
Nino Annaloro
Nicola Bertasi
Marjolein Blom
Kristina Borinskaya
Andrea Botto
Enzo Brai
Olga Cafiero
Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni
Francesca Catastini
Gianni Cipriano
Federico Clavarino
Umberto Coa
Dario Coletti
Roberto Collovà
Vittorugo Contino
Mario Cresci
Morgane Denzler
Alvaro Deprit
Chiara Ernandes
Stefano Esposito
Turiana Ferrara
Ezio Ferreri
Amy Friend
Alina Frieske
Charles Frôté & Julien Bono
Nino Giaramidaro
Bruce Gilden
Alice Grassi
Kata Geibl
Elena Helfrecht
Andrea Jemolo
Uma Kinoshita
Kublaiklan
Clément Lambelet
Camille Lévêque & Lucie Khahoutian
Pietro Lo Casto
Olivier Lovey
Rachele Maistrello
Massimo Mastrorillo
Brian Mc Carty
Emmanuel Muraille
Petra Noordkamp
Novella Oliana
Gloria Oyarzabal
Camillo Pasquarelli
Giovanni Pepi
Giulio Piscitelli
Nicolas Polli
Sarker Protick
Peter Puklus
Mustafa Sabbagh
Bianca Salvo
Gian Marco Sanna
Sandro Scalia
Michele Sibiloni
Daniel Stier
Daniel Szalai
Maija Tammi
Danilo Torre
Maria Vittoria Trovato
Urfaut
Giorgio Varvaro
Angelo Vignali
Cristiano Volk
Manon Wertenbroek
Martina Zanin
Alba Zari
Sophie Zénon
Zhao Qian
OPEN CALL
CALL FOR AN OPEN AIR INSTALLATION
What does it mean to design an open-air space?
How are new meanings created in an empty space?
The festival invites photographers, artists and curators to send proposals for an open air and site-specific installation/exhibition, which will be exhibited on the façade of the Town Hall.
WINNER 2023
Marta Bogdańska, Shifters (PL)
FINALISTS
Andrea Santini (The Looking glass)
Arnaud Hendrickx (Gibellina Shinkansen Stat)
Ilaria Ferretti (Sibilla)
Lamberto Marino (Quake-Mirror)
JURY
Simona Antonacci (Curator Photography Collection MAXXI- Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome)
Laura Barreca (Director Museo Civico di Castelbuono/mudaC, museo delle arti di Carrara)
Arianna Catania (Director Festival Gibellina Photoroad)
Louise Fedotov-Clements (Co-Founder & Patron of FORMAT Festival/ National Curator of Contemporary Art, Forestry England)
Enzo Fiammetta (Director Museum Fondazione Orestiadi- Gibellina)
Kublaiklan (Curatorial collective)
Laura Serani (Director Festival Planches Contact, Deauville, France)
CALL FOR PROJECTS
The festival invites photographers, artists and curators to apply to participate. You may be selected for: a residency in Gibellina, a personal exhibition presented during Gibellina Photoroad 2025, the entrance in the Permanent Collection of Fondazione Orestiadi, a collective exhibition, a collective screening at Format – International Photography Festival- Derby, UK.
WINNERS 2023
Claudia Amatruda – When you hear hoofbeats think of horses, not zebras (IT)
Claudia Fuggetti – Hot Zone (IT)
Cristobal Ascencio Ramos – Las Flores mueren dos veces (MX)
Emma Bedos – Linger (NC)
Federico Estol – Shine heros (UY)
Gabriele Stabile – Swim till I sank (IT)
Giaime Meloni – Columns of Cultures (IT)
Hélène Bellenger – Bianco Ordinario (FR)
Hiro Tanaka – Chicharrón (JP)
Luigi Cecconi – Incorrect Theory (IT)
Marcello Coslovi – The Wrong Side of the Tracks (IT)
Martha Friedel – Eclat (DE)
Nicola Di Giorgio – Calcestruzzo (IT)
Noemi Comi – Lupus Hominarius (IT)
Tommaso Rada – A Story on Oil, Pollution and Racism (BR/IT)
RESIDENCY WINNER
Hélène Bellenger – Bianco Ordinario (FR)
JURY
Simona Antonacci (Curator Photography Collection MAXXI- Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome)
Laura Barreca (Director Museo Civico di Castelbuono/mudaC, museo delle arti di Carrara)
Arianna Catania (Director Festival Gibellina Photoroad)
Louise Fedotov-Clements (Co-Founder & Patron of FORMAT Festival/ National Curator of Contemporary Art, Forestry England)
Enzo Fiammetta (Director Museum Fondazione Orestiadi- Gibellina)
Kublaiklan (Curatorial collective)
Laura Serani (Director Festival Planches Contact, Deauville, France)
OPENING EVENTS PROGRAMME
Coming soon