Sixth biennial of Salgemma sculptures – December 2023

The unique modern art sculptures museum in a still active 6 million years old salt mine

More than 80 km of tunnels make up the mining site of the Sale Italkali mine in Raffo, a suburb of Petralia Soprana, in the mountains of Palermo.

Formed six million years ago due to a series of rare geological events and the drying up of the Mediterranean Sea, this field of pure rock salt, in the shape of a lying egg, almost a kilometer long, houses MACSS by its concession by the Italkali Company. Museum of Contemporary Art SottoSale, which with its rock salt sculptures represents a unique case of a museum of contemporary art inside an active mine.

Forty works, the result of 6 biennials (2011-2023) make up the body of works, which unfold along an artistic, natural and geological path that has an incredible value. A suggestion that in about an hour allows us to discover the geological history of Sicily enriched by contemporary artistic testimonies.
The sculptures, made outside the mine, at the end of the biennale are relocated here, where a dry and moisture-free climate preserves them.

The visit winds along an itinerary of 400 meters in the plain, provides a geological explanation with multimedia material, then a visit to the Museum, with specialized guides that illustrate the works.

– BOOKING ON TIME IS ALWAYS MANDATORY –

The use of comfortable shoes is recommended.
Access to the Museum is subject to signing a release, children under the age of 12 cannot enter. Pets are absolutely not permitted.

Since the mine is active and operational, access to the production area is prohibited, for the Museum access is strictly subject to safety procedures. ‘The museum will be open on extraordinary dates communicated in advance on social channels.

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Sculptures of Salgemma Sottosale represents a truly unicum in the modern Italian museum system.

Created by the Sottosale Associations of Petralia Soprana and Arte e Memoria of the Milan area within the large rock salt vaults of the Italkali Mine, which granted the spaces, it contains works taken from large marine monoliths of pure salt, created by the hands of artists from international fame during the various Salgemma Sculpture Biennials that have taken place from 2011 to today.

Works not exhibited in emblazoned collections in large cities, but which return to their original place, in the belly of the earth that that salt has jealously guarded for six million years.

The Museum therefore establishes a potentially ephemeral form of art, effectively keeping the works in the only place where they can survive, that is, where the block of rock salt was born and where the absence of humidity saves them from deterioration.

A circularity of art, in which nature produces, man transforms, challenging the tenacious and mocking material until the last blow of the chisel, and which nature, once again, once the work is finished, safeguards.

Far from the great artistic and cultural centers of gravity, the MACSS therefore underlines, with all its power, the value of a Copernican operation of Art. Powerful sculptures to admire which the spectator is not only ideally, but also physically invited to descend into the belly of the Earth.

In fact, the route opens up to the spectator with a strong geological value, which allows us to proceed with the understanding of the natural phenomena that made the creation of the deposit possible.

Along the route, installations and panels guide the visitor around the site, discovering its secrets, such as the elements of industrial archaeology, witnesses of the technical evolution of the site’s cultivation.

Permanent exhibitions and projections accompany the visit, through large and evocative spaces, including the chapel of S. Barbara, patron saint of miners, until reaching the Salgemma Sculpture Museum, where one abandons oneself to a sensation of amazement and emotion that inevitably it envelops the heart of every visitor who is about to visit the MACSS for the first time: it is the sum of the action of man and nature that gives life to “speaking” works, capable of sparking a dialogue between sculptures and visitors.