Art in motion

In 1951, Pier Paolo Pasolini, under the pseudonym Paolo Amari, wrote the article I nitidi trulli di Alberobello for 'Il Quotidiano', referring to the town as the masterpiece of Apulia. Visitors, just like Pasolini himself, are always surprised and fascinated by the idea that one can live in such a fairy-tale atmosphere, made up of the whiteness of spontaneous architecture. This beauty and uniqueness is paid homage by the large work by Alessandro Suzzi aka Godsinlove on the entrance wall of the Stadio Comunale. The grey facade is filled with the team colours of Alberobello: yellow and green. His work speaks of the meeting of cultures: the sporting one and the historical- literary one. As Pier Paolo Pasolini used to say: football is a real language made up of signs, with its poets and prose writers. On the left, two boys play football on the clouds and then take flight in the form of white doves, just like those above the majestic oak of the city's coat of arms. This is a tribute to the young Giuseppe Scianni and Carlo Ruggieri who lost their lives exactly twenty-five years ago as they crossed the road at the end of a training session in the stadium that now bears their names. Next is a clear reference to the city's coat of arms with the fight between the rampant lion and the warrior immortalised by a smartphone, an emblem of contemporary society affected by compulsive "sharing". In the centre, on the other hand, are balloons immersed in reading, totally captivated by the story. Next to them are seven pinnacles - traditional decorative elements placed on top of trulli - whose anthropomorphisation recalls the seven liberators of the Selva to whom history attributes the city's liberation from feudal rule. Next comes a due homage - in a pop key - to Pier Paolo Pasolini, who not only described the beauty of the trulli but also loved football, especially the kind played on suburban pitches where the relationship between supporters and players is real, physical, like in a theatre. Finally, there are trulli taking selfies making us reflect on the way our approach to places and events has changed, more and more quick and mediated by a screen, we often forget to enjoy the slowness and authenticity through our eyes, without filters. An olive branch and an oak branch represent the two centuries-old trees which, like great sages, protect our territory. To round off this extraordinary and enormous pictorial work, there is the chorus of bodies intertwining and aiming at a ball as big as the world, because great is the spirit of team and community, the same spirit that in these years of distancing we have missed like the air. The area has also been equipped with benches and waste bins so that the space in front of the stadium is no longer just a place to pass through, but a place to stop and enjoy the new artistic facade that overlooks and embraces the city.