The ‘nomadic’ is a problematic term in the arts. It conjures the romantic view of an artist as someone unfixed to geographical (or seemingly financial) restraints, able to hot-foot around the globe seeking inspiration in that which is foreign and unfamiliar. Manifesta 18 does go to some length to counter this with many projects having local community contributions or at least ongoing consultation between the invited artist and place. However Palermo feels like a city on the cusp of gentrification and I felt acutely aware of how cultural tourism plays into the historic divide between private and public, evident not only in the Italian art world but also economically and in urban infrastructure. The Mafia may be on its way to being driven out but are we inadvertently replicating the poverty and positions of capital power with our centrally located Airbnb?
Nora Turanto, I’m happy to own my implicit biases (malo mrkva, malo batina), 2018
Photo via. Manifesta.org
In the small but impressively ornate baroque interior of Oraotrio di San Lorenzo a stark black mental frame, referencing both a cella and a locker room, provides seating for the audience as well as a structure on which Turanto impressively climbs in spiked stilettos. Her performance, somewhere between spoken word and a cappella, was a 20 minute recited stream of consciousness weaving from clickbait references to self advice regarding anxiety and FOMO.
Matilde Cassani,Tutto, 2018
Four unique velvet drapes adored the baroque facades of the Quattor Canti, a busy traffic and pedestrian intersection leading from the old quartier into the high street of Palermo. Each drape features an embroidered figure, like a Hindu god, holding a palm frond and an arancini ball. On Saturday the 16th of June the streets were blocked by police and a large crowd gathered in the sun to wait for the ‘all-day pyrotechnical show’ which turned out to be a bouts of coloured confetti blasted into the air and eventually to be strewn across the city centre, to be found for days to come in back alley ways, empty pockets and at the bottom of tote bags.
