Artists at Work who have been working in the territory over the past two decades are very active, especially in Barga during the summer months. Probably the most public of their events in recent years was in 2010 and was also without a doubt, the one event which was physically the largest, we are referring to THE CUBE, a 2.5 m cube which dominated Barga’s largest square, Piazza Angelio in Barga Vecchia.
As Frank Viviiano reported that year ” Until 10 pm, it posed a silent metaphorical question mark for passersby and a full terrace of Osteria diners. Then, with clockwork precision, the static was suddenly converted to frenzied sound and movement. Trumpet king/composer Andrea Guzzoletti and keyboard magician Simone Venturi, two of Italy’s outstanding jazz talents, began playing selections from Guzzoletti’s riveting “invisible Cities,” inspired by Italo Calvino’s famous prose poem -- Artists Fabrizio Da Prato and Keane, dressed in construction overalls and safety helmets and assisted by a muscle team, lifted the cube and lowered it over the musicians. In effect, they and their instruments were incarcerated in the huge hollow box, the exterior of which Keane and Da Prato set to painting. -- (full article here)
That event drew a large audience including almost all of the journalists, photographers and filmmakers in the area and so soon after films and photographs of the event flooded most of the social networks in this area on the internet. Many people commented on the huge size of the Cube and wondered what the Artists at Work team would come up with for the following year.
Well, the contribution to the cultural life of Barga during the summer of 2011, ironically has so far gone mainly unnoticed as the team instead decided that “size is not everything” and in fact ” small is beautiful”
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They created an installation in Barga Vecchia which only the very observant would notice -- The thumbnail Nuns of Barga.
Large full screen images of this installation can be seen by clicking here
Keane has been working on the theme of the nuns of Barga for over the past 5 or 6 years in various mediums ranging from drawings, photographs, paintings and murals. The following is the text written about the work back in 2008:
The work is based around a small group of people who have been living and working in Barga for generations, but now as a group are close to extinction – the nuns of Barga. Their numbers can be counted on one hand, and they always seemed to move around in a group. Just what is the collective noun for a group of nuns .. a flock of nuns, a gaggle .. a pride maybe ? Very rarely is it possible to spot a single nun in the streets of the city. The main group comprising of three very aged women, all diminutive in stature, and all three of formidable character.
Local residents, describe these three nuns, as always appearing aged. It would seem that nobody can remember them as young women. And there lies the problem, the young Italian women are no longer becoming nuns. It is very difficult to find recent data on the precise number of nuns living and working in Italy but their numbers are decreasing rapidly and even the new novices coming in from Africa and Asia can no longer fill the gap. Shortly, this compact group of dark clad women moving ghost like through the streets of Barga will be just that – ghostly -- article from 2008