An exhibition that revives the history and magic of Sicilian puppets. This is the goal that the artist Ida Saitta pursues in the exhibition ‘Once upon a time: on the wings of the Hippogriff’, curated by Giuseppe Ussani d’Escobar, set up in the new Rome office of Eht, (Consorzio Stabile di Imprese ICT (Information & Communication Technologies) in Largo di Torre Argentina, a venue that will be inaugurated by Saitta staff tomorrow at 6 pm and will continue until February 15, 2022.
The artist, says Ussani d’Escobar, “with his watercolors, inks and paintings, which we exhibit in this prestigious venue, wants to make us relive the stories of the Sicilian puppets, the Carolingian paladins, and the aura of Irish fairy tales that have their roots in the world of fairies and gnomes, druids and heroes. The common denominator of these experiences, which the artist invites us to know and experience with her, is magic. The fable leads us to the rediscovery of the myths of the origins , and gives us the opportunity to re-establish a lost awareness and identity or in any case clouded by the mists of progress and superficiality “.
The curator of the exhibition also points out that the “‘Busts of the paladins’, made with extreme skill by the artist, look to the masks; the first obvious reference is to the Teatro dei Pupi, but if you look at them carefully – he says – these reveal an ancestral and primitive nature that recalls African masks and seem to embody the spirits of the forest “. This “is quite evident in the ‘Saracen Paladina’. This fascinating suggestion is corroborated by the painting ‘The Paladin and the strength of the invisible spirit’ in which the Knight splits himself in the manifestation of the androgynous spirit that inspires him in pursuing justice. L ‘female element is essential for the intuition and interpretation of reality. The real Knight – for the curator – is in fact a harmonious combination of grace and strength “. And it is in this apparent contradiction that the magic of the Paladins lies “.