This publication documents a previously unreleased video project by Canarezza & Coro inspired by poet Eugenio Montale's unusual walk across the Italy-San Marino border to receive a Literature Prize in a context of tensions between the two States. The volume also includes fragments of forty-seven poems by Eugenio Montale, modified by the two artists.
On 30th September 1950, Eugenio Montale won the first and last San Marino Literature Prize with a series of forty-seven poems, which were later to be included in La bufera e altro, published in 1956. To receive the substantial prize of one million lire, Montale crossed the border on foot, like an illegal immigrant, because the frontier was under police control: the small State had just opened a gambling casino without agreement from the Italian state. San Marino. 30th September 1950 tells the story of the original project by Rita Canarezza and Piero Paolo Coro, based on Eugenio Montale's exploits. The book includes excerpts from Acqua il fruscio scorrente, the video reconstruction of Montale's voyage by the artistic duo, and the forty-seven poems by Eugenio Montale, from which the artists also cut out lines in order to make up a brand new poem.
Rita Canarezza (born 1967) and Pier Paolo Coro (born 1964) live and work in San Marino. Their activity is characterized by a specific research in anthropology, documentary languages and performative practice. Little Constellation is their most complex project: a network devoted to the knowledge and dissemination of artistic practice in the Small States and Micro Geopolitical Areas of Europe that comprises participation by more than forty partners in nineteen different countries. Their work has been hosted by Manifesta 3 (Ljubljana, 2000), Swiss Cultural Institute SIS (New York, 2002), dOCUMENTA(13) (Kassel, 2012), National Gallery of Iceland (Reykjavik, 2013), Banner Repeater (London, 2015), Archimuseo A. Accattino (Ivrea, 2017).
