The “Rammendi” exhibition by Alfredo Romano will be inaugurated on Friday, January 15 at the Italian Institute of Culture in Athens. Romano’s “Lini” (“Linens”) feature extracts of poems by 12th century Sicilian-Arab poets. The fragments harken back the rich and ornate repertoire of Ruggero II of Sicily’s court, where writing and pseudo-writing had a central role.” The elegance of the Kufic script and symbolic, spiritual and religious meanings associated with the letters of the Islamic alphabet led Sicilian Arab-Norman artisans to use them as an independent decorative repertoire”, explains Enzo Fiammetta, Director of the Mediterranean Crafts Museum.
“The “Rammendi” exhibition
“The evocative power of Islamic writing and extreme elegance of its characters left a significant mark on Sicilian decorative culture. In the following centuries, the decorative friezes with Islamic writing – which under the Arabs and Normans recited verses of the Koran or praised the glory of kings – began to lose their literal meaning and turned into decorative scores, where the graphic sign and its variants became central and the combination of letters was solely dictated by the formal composition. Alfredo Romano illustrates this complexity in his works. He talks about our place in a contemporary historical process that we are still part of due to our geographical and historical role, and takes us on a fascinating journey that, through its myriad facets and differences, helps define what is potentially a new common Mediterranean language – a new “koinè” “. The exhibition will be held at the Italian Institute of Culture until February 13.
