Thursday, Jan. 15 and Friday, Jan. 16, 2026 will officially open Portami il futuro, the program of Gibellina - Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026, an initiative promoted by the Ministry of Culture’s General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity. Supported by the Sicilian Region, the Municipality of Gibellina, the Ludovico Corrao Museum of Contemporary Art and the Orestiadi Foundation, the event will be entrusted to the Artistic Direction of Andrea Cusumano, who also curated the program for the two inaugural days, conceived as a progressive narrative, in which each moment dialogues with the next, with the aim of enhancing the memory evoked by the most significant places in the city, the relationship between tradition and contemporaneity expressed through musical choices ranging from symphonic to popular repertoire, the Mediterranean vocation of Gibellina as a crossroads of cultures, and the centrality of public space understood as a place of sharing, participation and collective construction of meaning.
The inaugural program will open on Thursday, January 15, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. with an institutional ceremony at the Agora Hall of the Gibellina Town Hall, broadcast live in the square in front: a solemn moment in the presence of Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli. The opening is by the Philharmonic Orchestra of the South (FIDES), conducted by Maestro Antonio Giovanni Bono, who will perform the National Anthem and the overture from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. On the occasion of Gibellina-Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026, the Orchestra Filarmonica del Sud will also begin a process of taking root in the territory, becoming the city’s permanent orchestra based at the auditorium of the MAC - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Ludovico Corrao.
The fulcrum of the ceremony will be two original video contributions made in the city’s most significant places: Alberto Burri’s Grande Cretto, with the reading of the unpublished text Poesia Gibellina by the voice of writer and poet Marilena Renda, Premio Strega Giovani Poesia 2025, and Mimmo Paladino’s Montagna di Sale, the setting for a musical performance by jazz saxophonist Francesco Cafiso. A tribute to the memory and artistic identity of Gibellina will be accompanied by a moment of recollection and remembrance of the earthquake, which occurred precisely on January 15, 1968.
The afternoon will continue with the opening of the first exhibitions. At 3:30 p.m. will open at the Orestiadi Foundation the exhibition Colloqui: Carla Accardi, Letizia Battaglia, Renata Boero, Isabella Ducrot, Nanda Vigo, which aims to relate the works of five central figures in the cultural history of Gibellina, for an unprecedented dialogue between languages and memories. Instead, at 5 p.m., Dal Mare: dialogues with the frontal city will open in the spaces of the Pietro Consagra Theater: the video-installations Resto by MASBEDO and The Bell by Adrian Paci will offer a discussion on the Mediterranean as a human, political and existential horizon. The exhibition Dal Mare: dialogues with the frontal city is produced with the technical sponsorship of Decibel.
The day will end at 7:30 p.m., in the Agora Hall, with a concert by La Banda del Sud, a special project of the Ministry of Culture conceived by Neapolitan artists, which brings together ten talents from the South in an orchestra of popular music conducted by Gigi Di Luca and Mario Crispi. The ensemble, composed of artists from Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia, together with international musicians from Spain and Palestine, will create a musical dialogue that will enhance the common cultural roots and Mediterranean vocation of the project. The concert is made possible thanks to the support of RWE, a major player in the renewable energy market in Italy. Free admission subject to availability.
On Friday, January 16, the exhibitions related to the Generazione Sicilia project will instead open their doors to the public. At 5 p.m., Daniele Franzella ’s installation Austerlitz will be inaugurated at the former Church of Jesus and Mary, designed by Nanda Vigo, while at 6:30 p.m. the group show dedicated to the Elenk’Art Collection will open at the MAC Museum of Contemporary Art Ludovico Corrao. Two projects that aim to return the narrative of a territory capable of transforming its history into a plurality of contemporary artistic languages.
The inaugural two-day event will conclude at 9 p.m. with a great concert by Max Gazzè & Calabria Orchestra in Musicae Loci, in Piazza XV Gennaio 1968, with free admission. Musicae Loci is produced and organized by OTR live.
The stage in Gibellina is produced in collaboration with Terzo Millennio and Puntoeacapo Srl.
From 10:30 p.m., again in Piazza XV Gennaio 1968, City of Thebes, a fireworks display designed in dialogue with the urban context and themes of the event, is finally scheduled to symbolically close the inaugural program.
For all info: http://www.gibellina2026.it/
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| Gibellina Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026: the program of events of the two inaugural days |
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