01LE TEMPLE DES REVES
Visionary Art Show
from 5 to 19 December 2025
Palmieri Foundation
Via Dei Sotterranei, 1 – Lecce, Italy
curated by Dores Sacquegna
The unusual and visionary art show LE TEMPLE DES RÊVES, directed and curated by Dores Sacquegna, opens on Saturday, December 6, at 6:30 pm. Organized by Primo Piano LivinGallery and staged at the Palmieri Foundation in the old city of Lecce (in Vico dei Sotterranei 1, in front of the cathedral), the exhibition will be open until December 19, 2025. The event, inspired by the Cabinet de Curiosités, pays tribute to the artist Ezechiele Leandro. Bilingual catalogue with texts by Dores Sacquegna and Toti Carpentieri.
The show and the artists
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is… Infinite. (William Blake)
LE TEMPLE DES RÊVES (The Temple of Dreams) is the title of the new edition of the Visionary Art Show – an unusual and visionary art project conceived back in 2010 by Primo Piano LivinGallery, which returns to Lecce in its TOTAL ART format with an exhibition/show that combines contemporary art with cinema, theatre, poetry, and music. A living story that brings to the stage twenty-seven dreamers of art brut, underground, neo-surrealist, pop, and fantasy art and their “cult objects” in a production that transforms the sacred, Renaissance venue of the Palmieri Foundation into a Cabinet de Curiosités, involving visitors in an immersive experience with the curiosity and wonder typical of a wonder room. An event that opens a window onto the collective imagination, where representation becomes writing, body, and moving image of the present time.
Unique and primitive specimen
In keeping with the 17th-century tradition of Wunderkammer and with a direction that rewards affinities and symmetry, the show begins with the presentation of a unique and primitive specimen, paying homage to the great visionary artist from Salento, Ezechiele Leandro (1905-1981), with works from private collections, five of which come from the collection of Antonio Benegiamo, the master’s nephew. Toti Carpentieri writes in the catalogue: “Leandro is a visionary with a multifaceted, diffuse, and articulated materiality… not against, but outside of any rules.” On display are powerful works that embody spiritual, archetypal, cosmogonic, and psychological concepts, such as the sculptures “Untitled – La sveglia/The Alarm Clock”, “Guerriero africano/African Warrior”, “La grotta. Due libri spezzati /The grotto. Two Broken Books”, the painting on wallpaper ”La Carrozza/The Carriage”, the canvases ”Un pascolo in aperta campagna / A pasture in the open country”, two ‘Untitled’ works, and the painting-sculpture-assemblage “Composizione/ Composition”. Eight cult objects. Eight as the symbol of infinity and testimony to the genius of the artist of the “Sanctuary of the Patience”(his house-museum located in San Cesario di Lecce), a magical place populated by anthropomorphic figures in cement, local ceramics, and pebbles.
Mutants (performance opening day)
In order of appearance, the cast consists of two “mutants” and their actions, which are different but complementary in their symbolism between death and rebirth. The first, entitled “Until we die”, is the titanic performance by Belgian artist Gaka Mira; a sort of aesthetic of resistance in which he uses multimedia techniques and live music to describe the contradictions and paradoxes of the human condition in two acts: the fire that burns and consumes and the comfort of water.
Next up is “Bugonia: The Sound of the Human Hive”, a project by Grazia De Palma, aka Miss Grace, an art curator and DJ from Puglia, which intertwines voice and rhythm in the sounds of experimental electronic music, interpreting the myth of “spontaneous generation” described by Virgil in the Georgics. Music and vocals seem to emerge from a hive in turmoil, and the honeycomb becomes the place of sound conception, a creative womb and a key to accessing the world of dreams and mystery.
Cameos
The direction continues with “Cameos” or appearances by a group of four world-renowned artists presenting their cult objects: from American street artist Shepard Fairey to Armenian surrealist artist Gabriel Manoukian aka Gabo, from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (famous for her polka dot works) to French pop artist Richard Orlinski.
Les mondes flottants
The world of matter and spirit that animated the collector’s vision of the world in nineteenth-century wonder room is recreated here in the dark room with “Floating Worlds,” a review of video animation, interactive art, and auteur cinema by four Chinese artists-directors, Yifan Jing (aka Zorg), Shenlu Liu, Angel Jiaqi Qin, and Jingjing Xu.
Les enfants terrible
Artists interact with the changing world of the immediate, of changing matter, of transience limited in time and space, and the Self becomes the protagonist in the surreal world suspended between nature and artifice of the “Enfants Terrible” on display with their cult objects. On display the works by italian artists Luigi Caiffa, Monica Lisi, Gianni Chiriatti, Claudio Rizzo, Maria Luisa Imperiali, Shirin Mohseni-Nasab from Iran, Gaka Mira from Belgium, Marco Riha from Austria, George Sirakys from Greece, Franca Ze from Germany, and Asya Fadeyeva, Yelena Lev, Nicole Martinelli, Sara McKenzie, Lark Pilinsky, Tatiana Yartseva, Victoria Williamson, all born or residing in the United States.
Welcome drinks and tastings offered by Contino Wines and FA Farm by Francesca Romana Ferrara.
Artists and works on display: Ezechiele Leandro, Shepard Fairey, Gabo, Yayoi Kusama, Richard Orlinski, Gaka Mira, Miss Grace, Yifan Jing, Shenlu Liu, Angel Jiaqi Qin, Jingjing Xu, Luigi Caiffa, Monica Lisi, Gianni Chiriatti, Claudio Rizzo, Maria Luisa Imperiali, Asya Fadeyeva, Yelena Lev, Nicole Martinelli, Sara McKenzie, Lark Pilinsky, Victoria Williamson, Shirin Mohseni-Nasab, Marco Riha, George Sirakys, Tatiana Yartseva, Franca Ze.
Partners
- Lark Gallery (United States)
- Contino Wines (Lecce)
- FA Farm by Francesca Romana Ferrara (Galatone)
- Artsper (France)
FONDAZIONE PALMIERI
Vico Dei Sotterranei, Lecce
December 6 to 19, 2025
Open daily and free entry from 4:30 pm to 8:30 pm (Mornings by appointment)
*Cover image from the video “1+0=1 ” by Chinese artist Angel Jiaqi Qin
