A conceptual, aesthetic and cultural confrontation between two border artists. Between the material strength of Stefania Pennacchio’s sculptures and the quantum paintings of Vassilis Vassiliades. Here is “Neighbor – Only space remembers”, a two-person show where the female-male dual, feeding on the stratifications of the territories of origin of the two artists (Sicily / Calabria and Cyprus) contributes to the creation of a pure and timeless dialogue in search of sacredness shapes and colors drawing lymph from the common Greek and Greek-Byzantine Mediterranean roots.
The comparison takes place between an Eastern Greek and a Western Greek whose personal stories, in addition to being cultural stratifications, still maintain a genetic memory typical of Byzantine man. The essentiality of the Basilian architectures in the Calabrian land – Stefania Pennacchio’s place of origin – sober, rough in the exteriors – contrast an interior rich in gold and precious aesthetic research as can be the conception of spirituality in Orthodox thought. Vassilis Vassiliades’ research, steeped in a contemporary conceptual language, has in itself a living root that contains all the meanings of the past carefully selected, meditated and incubated to then create an upward movement of birth in which the verticality of thought tears up the curtain. time to become matter.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on Saturday 2 July at 9 pm, at the Ex convent of the Retreat in via Mirabella, in the heart of Ortigia, and will be anticipated, at 18.30, at Palazzo Vermexio, by an international conference entitled “Kairos: Solo lo spazio recalls – Confrontation between Greeks of the East and Greeks of the West ”with the participation of: Francesco Italia, mayor of Syracuse; Fabio Granata, councilor for the protection and enhancement of cultural heritage of the Municipality of Syracuse; Prodromos Prodromou, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth of Cyprus; Vasilis Nanopoulos, mayor of Corinth; Pasquale Faenza, director of the “Gerhard Rohlfs” Museum of the Greek – Calabrian language, Bova (RC); Mariangela Ielo, professor at the University of Athens, vice president of the “Dante Alighieri” association, Athens Committee; Theodoros Angelopoulos, consultant for international relations “Michael Cacoyannis Foundation”, Athens; Klitsa Antoniou, university professor Cyprus University of Technology, Fine Arts section; Arturo Bizzarro, honorary consul of Greece in Catania; Giuseppe Marino, president of the Italian Cypriot Chamber of Commerce; Domenico Piraina, director of Palazzo Reale, Milan; Sebastiano Provenzano, consul of Cyprus in Sicily; Daniele Castrizio, professor of Byzantine numismatics at the University of Messina; Daniele Macris, president of the Hellenic Community of the Strait, Messina; Monica Centanni, Full Professor of Greek language and literature, IUAV University of Venice / University of Catania; Anselmo Madeddu, writer; Christos Argyrou – Art historian specializing in Byzantine history, Cyprus; Stefania Pennacchio, artist, sculptress and president of the Leucò Art Gallery association, Syracuse; Vassilis Vassiliades, artist, painter and artistic director of the Larnaca Biennial, Cyprus; Jean Blanchaert, curator, art critic and international gallery owner.
The conference and the exhibition, open until 10 August, are promoted by the cultural association Leucò from an idea by Stefania Pennacchio, Vassilis Vassiliades and Jean Blanchaert, in synergy with the Municipality of Syracuse; Sicily Region – Department of Culture and Sicilian Identity and the Italian – Cypriot Chamber of Commerce.