Atelier sul Mare
Opened in 1991 by Antonio Presti, the Atelier sul Mare is a Museum-Hotel of contemporary art, exclusive in the world, is just few meters from a wonderful sea, situated at Castel di Tusa (Me), close to Cefalù. The utopia lives here, the art utopia. There are 40 rooms and 23 of them are art rooms which were realized by the most important international artists.
Ulisse’s Journey
Here you are. The journey is here, within the hotel. This time the tour does not begin from the reception towards the external sight-excursions, but it covers through the halls, up and down for the stairs, within the rooms, growing of astonishment and wonders. This is "Atelier sul Mare", at Castel di Tusa, nearby the mounts of Nebrodi, in front of blue bay. The only one hotel in the world, exclusive. In the sense that excludes some mankind: the out-and-out dandy, the marketing men without any passions, the barren women in carrier do not enter. This is a place for outsider, for artists, for poets, for who falls in temptations. It would be Bruce Chatwin, or Hugo Pratt. In this museum of contemporary art, have come in pilgrimage, and have realized movies and videos, Raul Ruiz, Schroeder, Teo Eshetu, Memé Perlini, and also a small TV jewel by Aldo Vergine. The idea of Antonio Presti (the Sicilian mecenate who realized Fiumara d’Arte, the biggest park in Europe of monumental sculptures) goes back approximately 25 years ago and is to realize a place where people, the guest, can "live" within the art work, like sleeping in the crooked bed of Van Gogh or appear a window of Magritte. Now, let’s discover those rooms which were realized by important artists: let’s play with the virtual backwash of Fabrizio Plessi, where the bed is a raft and six screen overflows the guest with electronic sprays; let’s enter in the celestial island of Canzoneri "Line of shadow" for a bath in the sea, even though we are in the second floor. We can run after the colors of Piero Dorazio and Graziano Marini, dipped in the iridescent light; Moreover, in the cavern, we can read all the alphabets of the world which were written by Renato Curcio and Agostino Ferrari.
We can live a night in the Yemen room of Pier Paolo Pasolini, with the wall was made with mud and straw, realized by Antonio Presti, Dario Bellezza and Adele Cambria, where the bed makes us remember the deposition of Christ of Mantegna and the bath is an aquatic game. We can take refuge in the absolute white and glide down in the "Nest" by Paolo Icaro, an incredible bed, immense, floating on the sea, and in the night it becomes a happy victim or malicious executioner. Let’s go to the mystical cell of Nagasawa, "Mystery for the moon", without electric light, but we can found just a candle. And the spaces cut by Mauro Staccioli, behind the door/stone of Alì Babà, the golden nets of Maria Lai, "On a paper boat I’m boarding", beyond the columns of Ercole, for a challenge against the triviality. Last realizations, inaugurated for the 25 years of the Fiumara d' Arte: the "Room of the water bearers" by Madame Danielle Mitterrand, Antonio Presti, Agnese Purgatorio and Cristina Bertelli; "Lunaria - district without name" by Vincenzo Consolo, Ute Pyka and Umberto Leone; and the splendid “Hammam” by Sislej Xhafa. The last rooms we made are “The Light Room” by Pepimorgia and “The Light Ritual” by Antonio Presti, who worked together with some poets. Are you one of those who dip in a classified silence as soon as he enters to the elevator? Well, here it will not be possible, because in order to reach your floor it will be necessary to sing. It is the last plan and the desire of Antonio Presti, to assign to an artist an art work for the elevator of the hotel where, thanks to a complicated electronic system, only who will strike up a song will be able to arrive to destination. Atelier sul Mare will be the only place in the world where people, in order to enter and to exit, will have only to sing. Antonio Presti says "remember, who sings, prays two times".
Other triviality to defeat, the closet in the room. If you thought of hanging your dresses in a comfortable closet you were in the wrong hotel, in the art room’s clothes-hangers, consoles and bedside tables do not exist. Do not try to found a television set in the rooms, neither orient carpets, nor postcards or phone, in this place is not possible to buy or to sell, but just contemplation. The sky is the predominant element of the room "Tower of Sigismondo" by Raoul Ruiz where the ceiling is opened wide on the bed during the nights of full moon. And moreover, the guests will be able to realize their art works in terracotta, and still participate to the course of ceramics in the laboratory of the hotel. Who enters is not lost, he is in a place which transforms everybody into Ulisse. It will not be a traditional vacation, but if you will exceed your personal obstacle, you will find another dimension, just like Alice wonderland, behind the mirror. This art dream were chosen by few men as a discipline of life, and at Castel di Tusa "Fiumara d' Arte", there is a man who realized this emotional hotel not only for himself, but for the collective dream. That was his first start from his “Devotion to the Beauty”.
Text by Andreina De Tomassi
