Protagonists of the 7th contemporary locus are Davide Bertocchi (Modena, 1969) and Heimo Zobernig (Mauthen, Carinthia, 1958). The exhibition, curated by Paola Tognon, takes place in Bergamo from March 29 to May 24, 2015. contemporary locus unveils secret or abandoned sites and brings new meanings to them with site-­‐specific works by Italian and international artists. After the former church of San Rocco, reopened after eighty years with works by Margherita Moscardini and Jo Thomas, it’s now the turn of Porta Sant’Alessandro – a historic gate into the old city along the imposing circle of the Venetian Walls.

The four city gates are entryways to the medieval heart of Bergamo Alta, and form a conspicuous urban system with the Walls, contributing to the image of the town and its identity over time. Construction works for the Sant’Alessandro Gate started around 1560, and required the Early-­‐Christian basilica of Saint Alexander of Bergamo, the town’s Patron Saint, to be torn down. The Magistrale waterworks runs through the Gate, which has three passageways for pedestrians and vehicles. Its outer front is made of grey sandstone and yellow stone from Castagneta. The magnificent garret room, preciously covered in wood and used as a toll station for centuries, remained empty and closed to the public until the early 20th century. It now opens again as the 7th contemporary locus, with works by Davide Bertocchi and Heimo Zobernig.

The artists have taken over the room in different, yet complementary ways. Bertocchi interacts with the site relying on sound, connecting past and present, and the upper section – secret and silent – with the lower – busy and lively. Zobernig’s large-­‐scale installation plays with light and shapes, and is made of Murano blown glass, a precious material that brings to mind the Gate’s Venetian roots. Colours, forms and sounds fill the space, interacting with its history and functions: memories of the Serenissima Republic – which had the Gate built – and sounds the visitors play with. The site turns into an inhabited and resonant architecture.

Davide Bertocchi (Modena, Italy, 1969) lives and works mainly in Paris. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, under Alberto Garutti, and at the DAMS (Discipline Arte Musica e Spettacolo) at the University of Bologna. From 1993 to 1994 he studied at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, Holland, where he started experimenting with sound and music. In 1996, after a period in New York and Los Angeles, Bertocchi moved to Milan and settled in Via Fiuggi. The basement, converted into a work and living space, was shared by several contemporary artists – i. e. Diego Perrone, Giuseppe Gabellone, Debora Ligorio, Sara Ciraci, Simone Berti, Stefania Galegati, Ettore Favini and Lara Favaretto – and was later considered the starting point of a new art scene in Milan. From 1998 to 2000 Bertocchi lived in the Milanese home of Maurizio Cattelan, who advised him to apply for an artist-­‐in-­‐residence program at the École de Beaux-­‐Arts of Nantes, France, directed by Robert Fleck, Stephanie Moisdon and Philippe Lepeut. In 2000, Bertocchi was chosen among the ten Italian artists for the Studio Program at the MoMA PS1, New York. In 2002, he was a resident artist at the École Nationale Supérieure dArts at Villa Arson in Nice, France. From 2003 to 2004 he took part in the artist-­‐in-­‐residence program “Le Pavillon” at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Heimo Zobernig (Mauthen, Carinthia, 1958) lives and works in Vienna. His research spans from painting to sculpture and from videos to installations. He is considered a master of the Austrian Minimalism, and his teaching at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien has influenced several generations of Northern-­‐European artists. Zobernigs works were exhibited in some of the most prestigious exhibitions at an international level, like the Venice Biennale (1988, 2001), where he will represent his country at the Austrian Pavilion in 2015, the Documenta in Kassel (1992, 1997) and the Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997). The list of his many retrospectives and solo exhibitions includes those recently held at the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2012), the Kunsthaus Graz (2013), the Mudam Luxembourg and the Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (both 2014) ).

Porta Sant’Alessandro is one of the four city gates in the Walls that encircle the Upper Town, or Bergamo Alta. It is located at Colle Aperto (literally, “Open Hill”), the site from which the ancient road to Lecco, Como, the villages in the Valle di San Martino and the Adda river leads off. The Walls were erected between 1561 and 1588 by commission of the Serenissima Republic of Venice that ruled the town at the time. Since then, together with the four gates – Sant’Agostino, San Giacomo, San Lorenzo, and Sant’Alessandro – they have formed a conspicuous urban system, unaltered over the centuries, which has strongly contributed to the image of Bergamo as a city of art. A symbolic as well as physical boundary, the Walls were intended to protect the western border of the Venetian Mainland from the nearby Duchy of Milan, or other potential threats. They were commissioned to engineer Bonaiuto Lorini (Florence, 1537/44-­‐1611), who placed the Gates more or less where their Roman and medieval predecessors used to stand. The Gates took their names from neighbouring churches, of which only SantAgostino survived the extensive demolitions that the building of the massive Walls required. Sant’Alessandro was a basilica of Early-­‐Christian origins, built in the 6th century on the burial place of Saint Alexander of Bergamo, a martyr and the towns Patron Saint. A storm of protest arose when the church and the houses around were torn down in August 1561. The building of the Sant’Alessandro Gate resulted in a remarkable integration of architecture, engineering and landscape: in its garret room the Vasi and the Sudorno waterworks were successfully joined to form the Magistrale waterworks, which supplied the town with water. Until the late 19th century Sant’Alessandro was also a toll gate, where charges on goods entering Bergamo were levied. Partitions, planks and parlours gradually set up by customs officers were removed as late as the early 20th century. The Gate was extensively restored by Ciro Caversazzi in 1915, and a new arch on the northern side was opened for pedestrians in 1952. In 1961, to celebrate the Gate’s fourth centennial, a high relief representing the Lion of Saint Mark, the symbol of the Republic of Venice, was added to the outer front. It’s the work of Piero Brolis (Bergamo, 1920-­‐1978), carved from Zandobbio white marble. The conservation works carried out in the 20th century mainly involved technical elements and materials: the lower section of the outer front is 10 meters high and is in grey sandstone, while yellow stone from the Castagneta quarries was used for the upper section. Mixed reclaimed materials such as stone and brick were chosen for the front facing Colle Aperto. The Gate has a square plan, and the portico features the same structure as Porta Sant’Agostino’s: cross vault in the central archway and barrel vaults in the side ones entirely made of brick. The large garret room has a precious, recently restored wooden roof. The room is usually empty, and not open to the public. In the past, it was used as a passageway to reach the Walls’ gardens and to walk along the perimeter of the fortifications. Porta Sant’Alessandro has retained its historical role over the centuries. It is still is a hub of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, a meeting point that provides leisure opportunities, and an ideal starting place to visit medieval Bergamo.

contemporary locus is a non-­‐profit cultural association set out to design and organize exhibitions as well as to provide training and conduct research initiatives in Italy and online, implementing new art strategies. Founded in 2012, the contemporary locus project found its call in reopening secret or abandoned historic sites of artistic or economical interest, where contemporary artists are invited to freely interpret the places and bestow them with new and old meanings. Reactivating abandoned or invisible historic sites, using contemporary art as the key to unlock history, is the exhibition concept behind contemporary locus. Italian and international artists are invited to intercept the echoes and establish connections with the chosen venues, their history and conditions of secrecy or neglect, and leave their mark with site-­‐specific works or works that have been selected for each project. contemporary locus is also committed to carrying out research projects focused on innovation, providing professional training, building networks for new cultural players and enhancing the territory by promoting contemporary art on a social and urban scale. Past editions of contemporary locus have involved the reopening of the Luogo Pio Colleoni in 2012. The 15th-­‐ century residence in the heart of the Upper Town welcomed artists Huma Bhabha and Francesco Carone. The Cannoniera of San Giacomo in the Venetian Walls, a most significant testimony of 16th-­‐century military architecture, was the playing ground of Anna Franceschini and Steve Piccolo later the same year. The ex-­‐Hotel Commercio, part of the 13th-­‐century convent of Santo Spirito and the most ancient place of welcome in Bergamo, saw Francesca Grilli and Vlad Nanca at work also that year. In 2013, contemporary locus pursued its goals with a site-­‐specific video installation by Grazia Toderi at the recently renovated Teatro Sociale in the Upper Town. Later that year, Tony Fiorentino was invited to work in the secret spaces of the Domus di Lucina, Casa Angelini, a Roman residence dating back to the I-­‐IV centuries A.D. In 2014 the former church of San Rocco was reopened with site-­‐specific works by Margherita Moscardini and Jo Thomas. In 2014 contemporary locus has launched “Art Ideas”, a project that promotes collaboration between artists and companies or high-­‐end artisan producers. The first “Art Idea” is manoplà, an art product that has resulted from the joint effort between the experimental work of artist Diego Perrone and the made-­‐in-­‐Italy experience of the La Rocca company, a leader in premium sportswear and outdoor clothing.

The exhibition will be open saturday and sunday, 9am-1pm and 3pm-8pm. For more information please visit www.contemporarylocus.it