Preparations are underway in Ascona in view of the 40th edition of JazzAscona, which from 20 to 29 June will present no fewer than 300 concerts and special events with the participation of around fifty bands from New Orleans, Switzerland and Europe. One of the characterizing events of this special edition will be the Jazz Off The Wall project curated by the internationally renowned artist Yuri Catania, the largest street art exhibition dedicated to New Orleans jazz. It kicks off today, March 28, with the inauguration of the first work, created on the façade of the Biblioteca Popolare with the help of Ascona schoolchildren.
About forty ephemeral murals
To celebrate 40 years of the Jazz FestivalAscona, the Borgo of Ascona will embrace street art this summer with an open-air exhibition - probably the largest ever dedicated to jazz - which will take place in the streets of the historic core of the village. Entitled "Jazz Off The Wall", the exhibition will present around forty murals created by Yuri Catania, an Italian-Swiss artist who lives and works in Rovio, Mendrisiotto, known for his photographic works in extra large format created on public and private buildings. The works will have an ephemeral nature. The technique used is that of paste-up, that is, applying photographs printed on paper to the walls with a special glue.
The artistic project was born in New Orleans with the creation by Catania of a series of shots portraying musicians linked to the history of JazzAscona and tropical flowers typical of the city on the Mississippi, arriving on the shores of Lake Maggiore, where the artist photographed the flowers of the Camellia Park in Locarno. The exhibition, which also includes some snapshots taken in Ascona by Catania and by other photographers who have worked for the festival in the past, is expressed in a series of photographic works of various sizes and surreal features, in which the musicians appear immersed in the colorful subtropical vegetation of New Orleans and the varied vegetation of Ascona, with flowers and plants typical of the lake shores.
Yesterday, March 29, in Ascona, in the presence of the Mayor Luca Pissoglio, the President of JazzAscona Guido Casparis, the artist Yuri Catania and a delegation of children from the Ascona School Institute who participated in the cutting work of the installation, the first work was inaugurated on the front wall of the Municipal Library which, in fact, opens the creation phase of "Jazz Off The Wall". However, it will take two months (May and June) for all the forty works to be completed by Catania on the walls of the Borgo di Ascona and from 20 June, the starting day of the festival, it will be possible to live the complete experience of the exhibition in a multi-sensory journey that declines between art, jazz music and technology, as thanks to augmented reality, through the ArtiVive app, each installation will reveal extra content with photos and videos, to be seen through your smartphone.
A participatory work: appeal from JazzAscona to the population
The Catania exhibition, like all its public works, is created in a participatory way with the involvement of the population and volunteers of all ages. Anyone wishing to participate in the creation of the murals in the months of May and June, with various manual activities such as cutting and gluing, is invited to register via the JazzAscona website; just one hour of your time is enough to contribute to the creation of a work together with the artist.
An exhibition at the Municipal Museum of Modern Art until September
On 22 June, during the Festival, the Jazz Off The Wall exhibition will also open in the first floor rooms of the Municipal Museum of Modern Art of Ascona, which will be visible until 1 September 2024. Catania brings to the exhibition the portrait photography created in New Orleans, the photocomposition paintings that put the aforementioned portraits, the architecture and the local flora into dialogue, up to a work of street art deliberately unfinished to give visitors to the Museum the opportunity to conclude it together with the artist.
The photographers and sponsors
In forty years of existence JazzAscona has collaborated with various official and non-official photographers. The festival thanks Remy Steinegger, Stefano Mussio, Klaus Sommer and Alessio Pizzicannella for their availability: some of their shots will be integrated into the subjects of the murals. We also thank the Institutional Sponsors who support the Jazz Off The Wall exhibition: Borgo di Ascona, Ascona Locarno Turismo, Museo Comunale d'Arte Moderna Ascona, Ente Regionale per lo Sviluppo Locarnese e Vallemaggia and the technical Sponsors: Vinavil Spa and Onys Digital Solutions .
The words of the promoters of JazzAscona
The Mayor of Ascona Luca Pissoglio states: “With “Jazz Off The Wall”, we wanted to mark the 40th anniversary of JazzAscona with a project of great visual impact, which underlined not only the links created, through the jazz festival, with the sister city of New Orleans, but also capable of giving substance to Ascona's vocation as a village that cares about the work of artists, culture and contemporary art.”
The president of the festival Guido Casparis comments: “Jazz Off The Wall” is an operation that we wanted to highlight the first 40 years of life of the Borgo's most iconic event. This exhibition seemed to us to be an interesting way to enhance the beauty of Ascona, involve people in a fun and even playful way, attract the attention of the public and the media, creating interest already a few months before the event. It will probably have a notable tourist impact and will give prominence to the festival itself, whose beating heart obviously remains music.
