Book on Burri's Grande Cretto in Gibellina to be released next spring

A book on Alberto Burri's Grande Cretto in Gibellina, created after the 1968 Belice earthquake, will be presented next spring. The volume features photographs by Aurelio Amendola and a psychoanalytic essay by Massimo Recalcati, published by Magonza Editore. The 1968 earthquake (magnitude 6.4) killed 296 people, injured 1,000, and displaced 100,000 in the Belice Valley. Gibellina's reconstruction was led by mayor Ludovico Corrao, who invited artists and architects including Burri, who created the Grande Cretto on the ruins. The book includes previously unpublished black-and-white images by Amendola, who photographed the work after its completion in 2015. Amendola recalls Burri urging him to photograph the Cretto before his death in 1995. Corrao died in 2011, two days after meeting Amendola, but had ordered the cleaning and maintenance of the Cretto, which was later completed by the Fondazione Burri, the Comune di Gibellina, and the Regione Sicilia. The book aims to honor Burri's land art, described by Recalcati as a gesture of pietas that shows art's power to save the world from horror.