Yuval Avital – Bosco di Lecce

In concomitance with Yuval Avital’s Lucus exhibition at Fodazione Biscozzi | Rimbaud in Lecce, the artist experienced, in October 2023, a strong connection with the city. In fact, Yuval has been working non-stop on a complex relational art project that puts the artist and the city in dialogue in a process of collective creation, performances, art rituals, material compositions and co-creations made together with the citizenry, ideally transforming the inhabitants of Lecce into trees and the city into a human forest.

The artistic result will be presented in the spaces of MUST – Museo Storico della Città di Lecce, from November 19th, 2023 until February 4th, 2024.

The exhibition will include various paintings and sculptures created by Yuval inside the beautiful ex-church of San Giovanni di Dio, given by the Municipality of Lecce to the artist as an atelier, open to the public, which was visited daily by citizens and tourists, and which also welcomed seven local creatives who created artworks in dialogue with Avital using different techniques such as texile, mosaic, ceramics, embroidery, reed weaving, Leccese stone and papier-mâché.

Parallel to the work in the atelier, the artist photographed and filmed two new performance series, Radici, in which small groups of participants interact with mounds of soil, and Boschi Umani, in which many citizens utopically transformed themselves into trees, creating a forest.
Whithin the exhibition, the performances will be presented through icon-sonic artworks and photography.

In addition, a original series of icon-sonic artworks and photographies will present glimpses of Lecce chosen by the artist.

Finally, while working inside the church of San Giovanni di Dio, the artist had the opportunity to discover the forgotten school Istituto Margherita and its memories preserved over the years, which have themselves become a forest of lost objects.

Promoted by the Department of Culture of the City of Lecce, supported and financed by the Puglia Region, Teatro Pubblico Pugliese, Polo Biblio-Museale of Lecce and produced in collaboration with Fondazione Biscozzi | Rimbaud, curated by Lorenzo Madaro with coordination by Federica Tornese.

On Sunday February 11th, at 5.30PM, MUST, the Historical Museum of the City of Lecce, will host the finissage of Yuval Avital’s exhibition Bosco di Lecce. For the occasion, the rooms hosting the exhibition will stage a travelling theatrical performance in collaboration with Teatro Koerja, featuring the actresses of the Andjelka Vulic company, Emanuela Pisicchio, Luna Maggio, and Federica Toni.

The collaboration between the artist and Teatro Koreja, born on the occasion of Avital’s residency in Lecce, does not end with the realisation of the performance Radici, presented in a dedicated room of the museum, but continues for this occasion open to the public.
A final invitation to the citizenship, involved in performances and rituals of art, welcomed first in the atelier at the church of San Giovanni di Dio in via Palmieri and later in the restitution to the museum, who will now be able to attend an unprecedented and site-specific performance realised by the artist with the Teatro Koreja.

On the occasion of the performance, on Sunday, it will be possible to visit the exhibition free of charge with the artist and the curator.