The second book in the Ultralibri series, Stanze in a certain way narrates eight years in the creative evolution of the duo of artists and directors Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, who recently presented SPACCAPIETRE, the only Italian title in competition in Venice Days at the Venice Film Festival 2020.

The book offers an experience full of theatrical, poetic and cinematographic projects dedicated to the Somali lands and to the critique of Italy’s colonial past, linking old and new subjugations. The volume includes, among others, a contribution by Andrea Del Boca and historical essays by Luca Ciabarri and Gabriele Proglio.

Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio were born in Turin in 1978. They have worked together since 1999 as visual artists, screenwriters and film directors. Over the years they have directed short films, documentaries and produced installations that have participated in the most important national and international film festivals and various exhibitions.

The book that opens the new Ultralibri series – volumes that are on the borderline between essay, catalogue and artist’s book, going beyond the notion of book itself – represents the sequel to the exhibition of the young Lebanese artist and activist, Zena el Khalil, held in Beirut in 2017. The exhibition, hosted in the emblematic Beit Beirut on the green line in the city centre, expanded to include a large number of people and communities in 40 days of workshops and meetings, projecting the artist’s work onto the entire city, creating an open, inclusive and circular proposal starting from a symbolic place of the Lebanese civil war. The book not only collects that experience but, in the spirit of the artist, widens the discourse and the possible proposals for the care of a city and an entire people, towards a forty-first day. The book contains texts by the artist and Healing Lebanon, a collective author, a true community that is the result of experiences and dialogue.

Zena el Khalil, born in London in 1976, lives in Beirut. A visual artist, writer, performer, cultural activist and yoga instructor, she works with themes focused on creating a culture of peace and reconciliation. www.zenaelkhalil.com

A fairy tale for everyone, adults and children, a book that holds the words of a great author, Paola Mastrocola, and the work of the famous artist, Marisa Merz, the only woman to be a leading protagonist of the Arte Povera movement. This story of a strange little girl in a land inhabited by benevolent or terrible figures marks the rhythm of the pas-à-deux between the writer and the famous artist, who did not live to see the publication of this volume that she would have liked so much. This fable, which accompanies a new season in the series and for the publishing house, is both her legacy and our tribute to one of the most interesting and free women on the international art scene.

Paola Mastrocola was born in Turin and taught literature in a scientific high school. Until 1998 she devoted herself to theatre, poetry and literary research. In 2000 she made her debut in fiction, later publishing a large number of novels.

Marisa Merz, born in Turin in 1926 and deceased in 2019, was a famous international artist. Her work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions and is included in the collections of some of the most important international museums dedicated to contemporary art.

This art fairytale dedicated to the imagery and world of the Italian Transavanguardia movement starts with a real narrative between an adult man and a little girl, a book made up of dialogues, questions and answers between Beatrice and Giorgio. In the story, the five protagonists of the movement theorised by Achille Bonito Oliva enter with the vibrant colours and shapes of their works, providing a pretext for a conversation between generations, triggering elements of new stories, interpretations and exercises of freedom.

Giorgio Guglielmino, born in Genoa in 1957, is an art writer and collector.

Beatrice Carpani, born in 1988, a girl at the time of the book’s publication, was living in Buenos Aires with her family.

“Night. Not a single star in the sky…" In the darkness and silence of a city of tall, blackened buildings, Evelina dreams of opening a thousand-star hotel, the most luxurious and brightest ever built. And in her dream, Evelina imagines colourful and wonderful rooms. The meeting of Dario Voltolini’s words with Nicola De Maria’s pictorial language gives birth to a marvellous dream that exhorts to life so that “... we know that anger is also needed to give a beautiful colour to a world that otherwise dies”.

Thanks to the synergy between the art of writing and the art of images, La favola dell’arte offers children a fabulous way to enter the world of contemporary art, a useful means of entertainment and knowledge at the same time.

Nicola De Maria was born in Foglianise in 1954. “Since the mid-1970s the artist has been experimenting with an original language in which abstraction is charged with poetic figurative allusions, archetypal expressions of nature, joy and passion. His painting thrives on simple forms and pure colours”. (Achille Bonito Oliva)

Dario Voltolini was born in Turin in 1959. He has published Una intuizione metropolitana (Bollati Boringhieri, 1990), Rincorse (Einaudi, 1994), Forme d’onda (Feltrinelli, 1996), 10 (Feltrinelli, 2000), Primaverile (Feltrinelli, 2001), I confini di Torino (Quiritta, 2003) and Il tempo della luce (Effigie, 2005). With Giulio Mozzi he has published Sotto i cieli d’Italia (Sironi, 2004) and with Antonio Moresco he edited the collective volume Scrivere sul fronte occidentale (Feltrinelli, 2002). He also works as a librettist with composer Nicola Campogrande.

“One looked like a dinosaur. Another one looked like a anteater. Another one a big lizard or a crocodile. They are not just figures or signes among the stars. They are living creatures that move up in the sky – I said – the Universe is full of dinosaurs, kites, lizards and lions, men with arrows and rhinos”.
Have you ever looked at the sky discovering stars and constellations in courious shapes and wondering maybe someone else is doing the same on the other side?
From the synergy between Marosia Castaldi’s words and Mario Merz’s images, a tender fable telling about a world made of imagination that is inside everyone, told through a swift language that goes with the colours and shapes of Art.

La favola dell’arte, or a fabulous way of entering the world of art. The art of writing and the art of the figure in a close synergy at the service of fun and learning.

Mario Merz (Milan 1925-2003) was one of the leading exponents of Arte Povera. His works have been shown in permanent collections of the most important and prestigious museums all over the world: from Guggenheim in New York to the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, from Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Nationalgalerie in Berlin, from Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He received the Japanese Imperial Praemium for sculpture on November 2003.

Marosia Castaldi born in Naples, lives in Milan. She has studied philosophy and art. It’s ages since she dedicates herself completely to writing. She has published narrative texts, Abbastanza prossimo (Tam Tam 1986, finalist at mondello Prize 1986), Casa idiota (Tringale 1990), Piccoli paesaggi (Anterem 1993) and novels, La Montagna (Campanotto 1991), Ritratto di Dora (Loggia dè Lanzi 1994, finalist at Palazzo al Bosco Prize 1992), Fermata km 501 (Tranchida 1997), Per quante vite (Feltrinelli 1999, finalist at Premio Bergamo 2000 and at Premio Chianti 2000).