Il Grande Cretto di Gibellina

Abstract

The essay aims to make explicit the methodological criteria underlying the semiotic analysis of a space, taking as an example the case of the Grande Cretto that Alberto Burri realised in Gibellina in the second half of the 1980s. An impressive Land Art work that presents at first sight a series of clear-cut oppositions, but which on closer inspection calls them into question, rather emphasising gradations and nuances. The essay considers the discourses of space and those on space, the levels of the generative path, the plastic and figurative languages, showing how the analysis is the outcome of a continuous adjustment between the researcher and the text: the former engaged in constructing a coherent description project and in making "arbitrary" decisions which, however, once made, must be considered necessary; the latter ready to offer its indications, to suggest as it goes along the most pertinent categories for its own examination.