“Wine is a tool for dialogue, just like art”: according to Robert Princic and Matjaž Četrtič

In 2025, Gorizia and Nova Gorica are, together, the first “European Capital of Cross-Border Culture,” under the banner of “Go! 2025”, a program created to promote the common heritage, intertwined cultures, and shared histories of two cities that, despite belonging to two different countries, have always represented a single soul in the heart of Central Europe. A multicultural container in which “Ars Sine Finibus” was also born, a cross-border artistic project promoted by Robert Princic’s Gradis’ciutta and Matjaž Četrtič’s Ferdinand wineries - also partners in “Sinefinis”, the wine project collaboration between Italian and Slovenian winegrowers, launched by the two wineries - to transform the vineyards of Collio and Brda into a permanent art park, thanks to installations created by young artists from Italy and Slovenia, which will be inaugurated on September 5 in Gradis’ciutta in San Floriano del Collio.
Artists from both sides of the Italian-Slovenian border, symbolically and tangibly overcome through the expressive power of art and cooperation, have worked together to imagine a sustainable future using natural materials and creative languages, blending art, territory, sustainability, and historical memory. The goal continues to be, in fact, to “break down a border that, in the end, never really existed, except on maps: this is what we do every day, in our viticulture, in our relationships with the Italian and Slovenian families with whom we share the vineyards, and now also with art”, explain Robert Princic and Matjaž Četrtič</B<. “We are proud to be partners, once again, for “Ars Sine Finibus”. Supporting young people and contributing to cross-border culture is a responsibility for us, but also an opportunity. Throughout 2025, we will continue to open our doors to cultural projects thanks to Go!2025, because we believe that wine can be a tool for dialogue, just like art”.
A project curated by gallery owner Salvatore Marsiglione - and made possible thanks to the support of the Go!2025 Small Projects Fund of the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia Program, which aims to involve the two “twin” areas of Collio and Brda - consisting of two immersive installations that pay homage to the land and poetry, starting from a simple symbol: the grape, conceived as the “home of language”. These two installations are “So(g)no”, two large multisensory spheres made of eco-sustainable Cor-Ten steel, by Marco Nereo Rotelli, an artist whose international fame is known for his ability to blend poetry, light, music, and matter, which visitors can enter to admire the illuminated grapes that evoke a message of unity between nations and people. Also inside are works by Giorgio Celiberti, a famous Friulian artist of international renown, who presents a series of 25 ceramics that create a “Via Lucis”, which transforms from the informal into natural form, thus celebrating the union and fusion between international art and local culture. Of great importance is the contribution to the work of Professor Riccardo Valentini, Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist with the IPCC-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations scientific body responsible for assessing climate change, one of the pioneers in measuring terrestrial carbon flux, who coordinated a global network of over 600 flux towers (Fluxnet) located in different ecosystems around the world, and lead author of the IPCC “Special Report” on climate change. Here, he intervenes in “So(g)no” with his patented “Tree talking” system, installed on the vines planted near the spheres, generating a synergy between man and the earth, the generator of vines and life. Then, the music diffused in the spheres, which bears the signature of Alessio Bertallot, a well-known radio host, musician, and DJ, with his sound work “Remota”, in which the poems of poets Aleš Šteger (Slovenia) and Valerio Magrelli (Italy) are scattered, immersed, and fragmented: amid flashes of voices from poetic depths, barely perceptible as human communications between distant places, “Remota” is an allusion to the “Age of Hermetic Intoxication”, which distances us from the center, from our focus on the meaning of life, and forces us into a labyrinth of boundaries, a work of recording and composition presented in a world premiere.
Finally, during the vernissage, Andro Merkù, Radio Monte Carlo presenter and expert on the region, will present awards to the winners of a competition dedicated to artists under 35.