Gio Pistone: Genesi di un incantesimo

Genesi di un incantesimo – 2020

For the artist this work "represents the creation of a Rite which, through the shared spirituality of a community, was a reason for unity among people".

Gio Pistone investigates the figure of the woman highlighting how she is often, still today, a vector of prejudices and a catalyst of projections of evil: "Women/witches took care of births, deaths, psychomagy, alternative medicine and assumed an ever-growing power by managing the mystical and strongly pagan part of small rural centres. As Aleister Crowley used to say, Magic has all the elements of a Religion because it is composed of dogmas, rites, phantasmagoria, symbols and spells, meditation is practiced through words similar to prayers, magic that is very similar to miracles, mysterious apparitions and disappearances, rebirths. On the other hand, Christianity has laid itself on a beaten path by appropriating many elements of previous religions. Margaret A. Murray, an Egyptologist of the early 20th century, claimed that Witchcraft came from an Old Religion preceding the Christian one and that in the ritual part it approached a deity above the others, Diana, Queen of Witches. The genesis of a spell looks at the History of Magic, the importance of the rites and the central role of the Priestess/Witch in the construction of a mystical dramaturgy typical even today of magic-religious rituals".

In this sense the artist also refers to the historical theme of the witch hunt in order to make people reflect on what was due to women. The artist takes up the theme in the changed context of today to recall the attitude that is still found today towards those who are different or do not correspond to the expectations of others.