Temmatemenetè is a widespread intervention in Terravecchia, the ancient village of Pietramontecorvino. The title – a plausible translation of which is «I would kill you, but I don’t feel like it» – coincides with the refrain of a sciàmbule, a form of traditional song widespread in some villages of the Dauni Mountains, practiced on a precarious swing made with a fire log suspended by a rope at the front door of the houses. Handed down exclusively in oral form, the sciàmbule were only sung during the week of Carnival. They allowed a temporary overturn of established hierarchies, customs and the morals in force, conveying from time to time forbidden messages and feelings of love, disdain or pain.
The idea of a physical and symbolic threshold is at the center of the intervention by Gaia Di Lorenzo, whose main focus is the entrance door to the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace. Here the artist installs a large aluminum curtain that recalls the traditional fly-screens widespread in the villages of the South (scendelille in the local dialect), surmounted by an inlaid wooden crossbar on which the phrase Temmatemenetè is engraved. This action of decontextualizing a typically popular element has the effect of projecting the entire courtyard into an unusual domestic interior dimension. To echo the main installation, other fly-screens in the alleys and squares of Terravecchia transform the passages and doors of abandoned houses. They and the wind – a constant presence in the village – are entrusted with words and messages that resurface from a distant time and give new life to the sciàmbule.

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Permanent works:

01. Gaia Di Lorenzo, Temmatemenetè, 2021, installation, alluminium mosquito net, inlaid wood, approx 230 x 300 cm.

Pietramontecorvino (FG), Puglia

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02. Gaia Di Lorenzo, Scendelìlle, 2021, 13 widespread works in the village, widespread installation, 13 elements, alluminium mosquito net, inlaid wood, variable dimensions

Pietramontecorvino (FG), Puglia

Gaia di Lorenzo (Rome, 1991) constructs her works by superimposing seemingly distant levels of meaning passing from painting to sculpture and incorporating text, sketches and digital prints. Her subjects come from social media images, likewise from antiques and works of art and her colleagues. Among her most recent exhibits exhibitions, we mention: ‘We contain each other (Breve storia di una spugna)’, ADA, Rome in 2019 and ‘Sitting Amongst’, Jupiter Woods art organization, London, in 2018.