In early September, the Italian city of L’Aquila, the capital of the hilly region of Abruzzo, became the site of extraordinary artistic encounters. A weekend-long event of exhibitions, talks, screenings, and gatherings offered a host of surprising experiences around the 13^th century city, which is still reeling from the earthquake that devastated the region in 2009. Just an hour’s drive from Rome, the city was selected to host the 2023 edition of the annual roving art exhibition Panorama, organised by a consortium of Italian galleries gathered under the umbrella name ITALICS.

Curated by Cristiana Perrella, the exhibition brought a host of artworks by international artists to courtyards, churches, museums, small businesses, and dilapidated palazzi across the city, some still in the process of being restored. The structural damage to the historical centre of L’Aquila and thousands of its buildings is indeed very present; some blocks are entirely buttressed by scaffolding even a decade and a half later. The city’s community and identity, meanwhile, have also been redefined by the catastrophe, as many locals have left and new families moved in to help with the project of rebuilding.

The former studio of artist Marcello Mariani is nestled inside a decaying palazzo on one of the streets overshadowed entirely by metres upon metres of steel scaffolding. Mariani opened the space in the 1970s, hosting participatory art happenings in the heart of L’Aquila. Artist Daren Bader created a performative piece for the space, which he prefers to describe as “a sculpture,” rather than simply an audio file when it is not performed live, explaining that the means required to make the file audible are indeed sculptural. Visitors and performers alike were required to wear hard hats to enter the premises to experience the work antipodes: quartets. It consisted of two trios playing clashing scores simultaneously in a disorienting cacophony, with the occasional recognisable pop song or classical composition luring one to stay for more. Elsewhere, inside the wood workshop of a local artisan, artist Jacopo Benassi presented the installation RIVOLUZIONE! (2023), a collection of his own framed photographs tightly strapped together with a large-scale painting, creating a sculptural composition that becomes a poetic, if somewhat direct, metaphor for the city itself.

On the main commercial street, across from the white-marbled square and imposing cathedral, Caffé Fratelli Nurzia—a local confectionery famous for its traditional nougats—lent their display window to a bulbous sculptural composition by Alek O, made entirely of sugar paste and food dyes. At the other end of the pedestrian shopping zone, the artist Diego Gualandris presented a group of paintings inside the Libreria Polarville bookshop titled Il paradiso dei Pappataci (all 2023), each speaking to narratives, folktales and speculative fictions that appeared as if they had emerged from the literature stacked below.

In addition to well-frequented businesses that could be rediscovered on Panorama's meandering route through L’Aquila, the four-day event also rendered private residencies and palazzi that are still under reconstruction and accessible to the public. One such location is the Casino delle Delizie Branconio, a private 1932 structure built on the site of a 16^th century palace. Its walls are covered with Raphaelite-school frescoes, a technique which requires a rigidly structured schedule due to the lime base. Artist Anri Sala posited a dialogue with the lush, vivid frescoes in a work titled Fragmentarium II, (2023), which includes irregular fragments of frescoed marble laid out on a display table. The work evokes the arduous and meticulous work and expertise that goes into restoring the city’s rich legacy and cultural heritage, some of it lost forever.

The courtyard of the monastery of San Domenico played host to a grand installation by Pascale Marthine Tayou, who created a multi-part glass sculpture for the city, titled Il Genio dell’Aquila (The Genius of L’Aquila) (2023). A totem made of multi-coloured quartz crystal stands in the heart of the work, invoking a mix of belief systems, rituals and deities. Fragments of crystals in various colours shimmered around the towering artefact as the sun set behind the mountains surrounding the city. 

The beauty and delight of finding the site-specific interventions around L’Aquila is only one part of Panorama's meticulous and thoughtful production. There are works installed within the public space of the MAXXI museum, which opened two years ago, as well as inside the 16^th century fortress, which today houses the natural history museum, with its permanent presentation of a mammoth skeleton found in the area, inviting exhibition goers to revisit the city’s institutions.

The central exhibition, meanwhile, was installed across two palazzi: Palazzo de' Nardis, built in the 15^th century by L’Aquila’s most powerful family, and Palazzo Rivera, built after the major 1703 earthquake by a wealthy family of wool and saffron merchants. Here, the blue glow of a neon work by artist Yael Bartana—which reads “Patriarchy Is History”—washes a marble figure of Berenice by the 19^th century Milanese sculptor Amborgio Borghi. It is just one of many instances in which the curator, Cristiana Perrella, proposes clever dialogues between past and present, canons and their challengers.

Perrella is the second curator to have staged an edition of Panorama—the first two iterations, held in 2021 and 2022 on the island of Procida and the city of Monopoli, Puglia, respectively, were both curated by Vincenzo de Bellis, who has since joined Art Basel as Director of Exhibitions. The event’s organising network, ITALICS, counts over 60 Italian member galleries who work together to strengthen their market and spotlight their artists while also aspiring to celebrate Italy’s rich regional scenes and landscapes outside of the well-trodden attractions and art hubs.

The network’s president, Lorenzo Fiaschi of Galleria Continua, and Gagosian's Pepi Marchetti Franchi, were the driving forces behind this unique initiative that foregrounds collaboration in a manner almost unheard of in other international gallery hubs. This past weekend, during the art fair Artissima in Turin, ITALICS announced the location of Panorama 2024, which is set to take place in Monferrato, on the rolling hills of Piedmont, and will be curated by Carlo Falciani, who is among the greatest scholars of 16^th century Tuscan painting. His perspectives on contemporary art promised to offer sophisticated encounters with this region’s rich culinary and cultural heritage.