Casting the Castle Returns to Civitella Ranieri with Performances by Chironi, Grilli, Pietroiusti

On June 22, 2019, Civitella Ranieri, an 11th-century castle in Umbertide, Perugia, reopens to the public for the second edition of Casting the Castle, curated by Saverio Verini. The project animates the castle with live performances by former fellows Cristian Chironi, Francesca Grilli, and Cesare Pietroiusti, alongside collages by the late poet Mark Strand. Chironi's 'Cutter' uses a sharp tool to excise images of endangered subjects from books, accompanied by live sound. Grilli's 'Gold Revolution,' originally staged in 2015 at the American Academy in Rome, invites visitors to read revolutionary texts while two falcons fly through the library. Pietroiusti burns paper sheets in a ritualistic act inside the castle cellar, limited to 25 viewers at a time. Civitella Ranieri, founded in 1995 by American patron Ursula Corning and directed by Dana Prescott, is a residency and laboratory for international artists, poets, writers, and composers. The event celebrates the residency's 25th anniversary and its mission to foster creative exchange. Strand, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1999 who died in 2014, was a donor of 3,000 volumes to the residency's library; his collages are shown for the first time in Italy.