Peccioli made his debut as a promoter of projects of public art in 1991 with Sort of spaces, an initiative curated by Rita Selvaggio. The artists Vittorio Messina, Vittorio Corsini and Hidetoshi Nagasawa were called to work in Peccioli; they were asked to take into account the social impact of their work and to relate to places and landscapes, in order to create works consistent with the context. The artist does not create without regard to the final place where his work will be placed and to its users. The citizen becomes a source of inspiration for the artistic work and an active subject in understanding its content.
For the curator “Here lies the most crucial and innovative contribution of the works in Peccioli. Concisely, art and cities have rarely met thus far and when it did happen, it was often a matter of external relationships as opposed to the inhabited urban context. Public administrations sometimes sponsor exhibitions and invest in art, looking after many of their products and objects, and choose prestigious and agreeable premises for display. Yet such choices are made in a fashion as casual and indifferent as the effect of this aesthetic dimension on the life and the identity of the city. The idea proposed and experimented in Peccioli is approaching art not only with the “external” dimension of the city but also with the “internal” one, analyzing the effect that art can have on the daily life of citizens. Therefore, art within the life and history of citizens … On a methodological level, the works in Peccioli seem to be an important one as it forces us to change the way we think about social and cultural development…”.
More info: Archive of Foundation Peccioliper
