Place

Monte­pul­ciano in Tuscany – who doesn’t think of olive groves, vines and time-hono­ured history: the small town is majes­ti­cally enthroned on the top of a moun­tain above the surroun­ding hills. The medi­eval fort­ress wall offers an unfor­get­table view over one of the most important and oldest cultural land­scapes in the world.

But Monte­pul­ciano offers more than just the ideal image of a small Tuscan town: young artists are incre­a­singly disco­vering this town full of tradi­tions. In addi­tion to the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte festival, it is the events orga­nised by the European Academy of the Arts in Palazzo Ricci that attract artists and art lovers from all over the world to this town. The aim of the Kolleg der Künste is to create a new, unique working and rese­arch envi­ron­ment for students from the art and music acade­mies of North Rhine-West­phalia and their teachers in this special loca­tion. They come from their ever­yday univer­sity life to a city whose centre is closed to car traffic, whose street network with its narrow corners, alley­ways and steps opens up at the highest point to the Piazza Grande, where the preserved histo­rical buil­dings tell of a long history and a proud, urban self-confi­dence.

The target of the Kolleg der Künste in Monte­pul­ciano is to develop new paths, open up new approa­ches, think outside the box and create new networks.