Marianne Bernstein Projects is pleased to announce, Due South, the second project in a quartet of island-based explorations, highlighting an international exchange and exhibition between American and Italian artists. Due North (duenorth2014.com) focused on Iceland, and Due South (duesouth2016.com) on Sicily.

This project is an international first, an opportunity to begin a cultural and artistic dialogue between the United States and Sicily. The exhibition will be presented at The Delaware Contemporary, in their three main galleries from January 28-April 30, 2017. There will also be a Symposium, in collaboration with the Region of Sicily, to explore new currents in contemporary art as well as events that spotlight Sicily's dramatic allure.

Our fascination with Sicily evolved organically when a participating artist in Due North began to make striking parallels between Iceland and her native country. Like Iceland, Sicily's culture is rooted in an epic, volcanic landscape and diverse cultural history as an island shaped by conquering cultures. The curatorial vision for Due South crystallized around southern Italians' unique relationship to their tumultuous landscape through tradition, agriculture, and myth. Due South aims to explore Sicily through fresh eyes from both insider and outsider perspectives.

Due South is a culmination of three years of artistic research, with leading American artists traveling and
completing residencies in Sicily while beginning dialogues with acclaimed Italians artists, who will exhibit work alongside their American colleagues. Select Italians have been invited to travel to the United States to
complete ambitious installations and works on site and a residency at the Museum. American and Italian artists will also make connections and build networks with the Sicilian-American community, art lovers, and collectors through various planned events. Each of the artists is committed to making work in the social sphere, through interactions with communities, traditions, and histories unique to Sicily. Important to this exploration are the difficult integration of a rich past and an ever-infiltrating technological present, extremes in history and weather, and the contradictions between a seductive landscape and its inherent Mediterranean/volcanic challenges.

These are pressing dichotomies for our contemporary globalized moment as we try to examine history,
heritage, tradition, transition, and rebirth of a place. The selected Italian artists are Frederico Baronello, Glauco Canalis, Gabriela Ciancimino, Concrete, (the duo Lisa Wade and Gabriele Abbruzzese), Massimo Cristaldi, Flavio Favelli, Benoit Felici, Alice Guareschi, Carlo and Fabio Ingrassia, Cristina LaRocca, Filippo Leonardi, Loredana Longo, Nicolo Morales, Francesco Nonino, Luca Nostri, and Marinella Senatore. American artists include Marianne Bernstein, Cindi Ettinger, John Broderick Heron, Andrea Hornick, Jane Irish, Kelsey Halliday Johnson, David Scott Kessler, Zya S. Levy, Danielle Lessovitz, Matthew Mazzotta, Andrea Modica, Serena Perrone, Alex Tyson, Steven Earl Weber, and Brett Day Windham.

Participating artists have either made previous work about Sicily or are interested in site-specific or socially engaged projects.