A contemporary art installation will soon be positioned inside Villa Margherita, a historic garden in the city of Catanzaro, following the acceptance by the Municipal Council of the proposal presented by the Elpis Foundation of a free loan contract for the installation and temporary exhibition of the named sculpture “Tong”work by Lupo Borgonovo.
Borgonovo is a Milanese artist born in 1985, “Tong” is currently part of the works included in the project “Una Boccata d’Arte” which, launched by Elpis in 2020, involved 20 regions, 20 villages and 20 contemporary artists. It is precisely in this context that the work has been exhibited so far in Civita (CS), a splendid municipality included in the Pollino National Park. “Tong”, according to the description given by Borgonovo himself, is “a bronze casting made from the cast of a portion of roots translated on a vertical axis, a tribute to nature and the meeting of cultures”.
The council resolution 383/24 of 25 June describes it as “patinated bronze, 220 x 130 x 70 cm, consisting of a unique sculpture with a value of €5000”.
The Elpis Foundation has acquired the availability of the work which it intends to grant on free loan to the Municipality of Catanzaro as the first act of a “collaboration started with the common objective of further promoting artistic and cultural dissemination and also enhancing the territory which hosts the work” under the conditions and terms set out in the specific contract. Which will have a duration of five years, at the end of which “the work must be returned by the Municipality of Catanzaro in the same state in which it received it, clean and in perfect state of repair, with the sole exception of innocent deterioration due to diligent use for which the work was delivered and also considering any exposure in spaces subject to atmospheric events”. The contract is not automatically renewable, except for the possibility of renewal subject to the signing of a specific written agreement between the parties. In the meantime, the Elpis Foundation undertakes to authorize the Municipality of Catanzaro to grant the work to the Wake Up ETS Association of Catanzaro so that it can be included within the MUDIAC city circuit (Diffuse Museum of Contemporary Art).
The aim of the agreement, as underlined in the resolution, is “to contribute to making the City of Catanzaro increasingly attractive and culturally recognisable, offering an example of how through artistic installations it is possible to raise the recognisability of urban and we can identify the city as the ideal container, visible to all, without diaphragms, in the belief that the experience of art and beauty, when it goes from occasional to daily, releases innovative energies of vitality capable of ‘reflecting’ themselves in a dynamic commercial development”.
The procedure received a favorable opinion, as regards landscape compatibility, from the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Catanzaro and Crotone since “due to design choices, methodology and materials used, the same do not conflict with the landscape values of the protected area and with the context of the state of the surrounding places as represented in the design documents” with the requirement that “the planned temporary installation of the work must necessarily be previously agreed upon during an inspection with technicians from this Office in order to evaluate its correct location within the Villa Comunale”.
The resolution attaches the favorable opinion of technical regularity from the manager of the Culture Sector Saverio Molica and of accounting regularity from the manager of the Financial Sector Paolo Macrina. Nothing is due from the agreement between the parties, but the necessary insurance coverage led to the need to commit the sum of 805 euros for the stipulation of a specific policy.
