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Grazia e Gianni Bolongaro are the people behind the initiative to create La Marrana Environmental Art Park in Montemarcello (SP). The couple followed in the footsteps of Grazia’s father and grandfather who happened to be true enthusiasts of botany. In the 1950s, her Neapolitan grandfather Alfonso Marino donated a significant part of his collection of XIX century Italian works of art to Museo di Capodimonte, where they are still exhibited

Thus, Grazia and Gianni strived to boost the local interest for contemporary art, as a vital part of cultural development. In addition, they wanted to spearhead new ways to promote the Montemarcello Magra Regional Natural Park as a tourist destination – hence the creation of the Environmental Art Park right inside it.

In 1997, their very first exhibition was launched, and Persian artist Hossein Golba was asked to create a themed display of his masterpieces, entitled “The Golden Day”. Since then, eighteen different artists have benefited from this new exhibition venue with some 34 works of art – installations and sculptures always mingling in perfect harmony with the very spirit of this place. Acclaimed, international celebrities made each single exhibition a true feast for the visitors’ senses, including Luigi Mainolfi, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Ettore Spalletti, Emilio Vedova, Marco Mazzei, and Mario Airò, just to name a few.

Each artist is usually invited to visit and stay for a while, in order to better understand the atmosphere of this place, its true soul, its surroundings, and local history. Only then, a new masterpiece can be brought to life, in full harmony with the exhibition venue. Grazia and Gianni actually seek to achieve what Goethe wrote in his poem “Sommer”:

“The field and the forest and the rock
and the gardens have always been for me
just a space and you, my beloved, turn them into a place”

These verses were also embedded with “La Caballa di Goethe”, a recent work of Italian sculptor Lorenzo Mangili positioned at the entrance of the “path of the works of art”.

Text source:
http://www.culturainliguria.it/cultura/it/Temi/Luoghivisita/parchiGiardini.do?contentId=29151&localita=2154&area=212 photo source, http://www.artribune.com/television/2012/08 / grace-and-john-Bolongaro-prom-nelloasi-of-marrana-small-focus-on-the-works-park / attachment / mario-airo-2 /

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)