Alex Cecchetti: SENTIERO

Reflecting on the notion of a physical and imaginary journey, artist Alex Cecchetti proposes a new project entitled SENTIERO. In part a community art project and a land-art intervention, and in part an aesthetic-performative path and installation, SENTIERO, curated by Valerio Del Baglivo, will be exhibited for the first time in Urtijëi/Ortisei for the eighth edition of Biennale Gherdëina (May 20–September 25), curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos. 

The artist and this project have been announced as one of the recipients of the 10th edition of the Italian Council (2021), the programme to promote Italian contemporary art in the world by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

SENTIERO consists of the creation of a path in the surrounding landscape of Gherdëina/Val Gardena, in the unique setting of the Dolomites, a Unesco World Heritage Site, which, in the words of the artist, “accompanies the viewer in a spiritual experience of communion with the other beings and species of Val Gardena: an immersion in the deepest and most vital connections that hold together the life of the mountains.”

With the aim of reconstructing the relationship between human beings, the environment and aesthetics the path is safeguarded by a group of local guides trained by the artist, who accompany visitors along the journey: wearing costumes with designs and embroidery, the guides create choreographies inspired by the celestial movements that rhythm the seasons, tell stories, recite poetry, sing songs and invite the public to interact with the environment. 

Moreover, SENTIERO includes a number of installation elements that serve as ‘stations’ for experiencing the landscape; communing with trees and other species and observing astronomical events. Steps mark the audience’s path and accompany them to the heart of the work: a YURTA, inspired by those of the Mongolian and Afghan nomadic populations and entirely embroidered and painted with natural dyes from local plants. This serves as a shelter to stay overnight and eat a meal of mountain herbs, the same ones that were passed along the path. SENTIERO has a nomadic nature and travels in different natural and cultural contexts, opening up a reflection on the concept of the border that characterizes the geographical area of North and South Tyrol, with the ambition to cross arbitrary demarcations and to reason about the idea of political, geographical and species margin.

After the inaugural presentation at Biennale Gherdëina, the project will then be shown at TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol in Innsbruck (Austria), IASPIS in Stockholm (Sweden), Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover (Germany), Somalgors74 in Tschlin (Switzerland), and MAXXI AQUILA (Italy). These presentations will take place during 2022 and 2023, with more details to be announced shortly. SENTIERO will then enter the permanent collection of MUSEION—Museum of Contemporary Art in Bolzano. 

SENTIERO is accompanied by an App for smartphones enabling visitors to book a visit and which also will contain documentation of the project, and an accompanying publication, published by NERO.

The director of Biennale Gherdëina, Doris Ghetta, said, “With SENTIERO by Alex Cecchetti, we have captured the zeitgeist of this historic era, in which the importance of having an immaterial collective experience is once again crucial, while traces will remain in the landscape and in us in the future.”

Alex Cecchetti’s work focuses on the construction of narratives experienced both mentally and physically by the audience. Tactical and poetic, aesthetic and materialistic, political and imaginative, he produces immersive situations for the ecological transformation of consciousness. Recent solo exhibitions include: Casa da Cerca, CAC (Almada, PT, 2021); Netwerk Aalst, CCA (Aalst, BE 2020), Spike Island (Bristol, UK); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Torino), Centre For Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw, POL) in 2017. Installations and performances: MAXXI (Rome, 2021, 2020), SEMA Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, KOR) 2020; Castello di Rivoli (2019, 2020) and Serpentine Galleries (London, UK), in 2019; Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2017, 2014); Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017 and 2014). He is the winner of the Amedeo Modigliani Prize 2020.