The devil in Sicilian fables is not the devil as he is commonly known but an indeterminate magical being who acts alone or following someone else’s will. He does not obey God but an exceedingly powerful magician. In chivalric literature and in the Opera dei Pupi, magicians call upon devils, forcing them to do their bidding. In this fantastical world of angels and demons, and fays, sorcerers and sorceresses use their “arts” to ensnare, deceive, and command, determining the course of events and participating in the fight between Good and Evil.

In the Opera dei Pupi, magicians can be divided up into good magicians who help the Christians, bad magicians who help the Saracens, and ‘ambiguous’ magicians who are motivated purely by personal interests. The former place demonic powers at the service of the Church, conciliating magic and religion, with the former subordinated to the latter. This installation invites us to consider magic as a code, signs and symbols used to explore reality. A shared code based on  a vast symbolic production and a complex system of representation. The pupi bear witness to a system of magical thinking that goes beyond mere theatrical spectacle, using objects to reflect the need that causes humans to turn to the magical sphere and to the sacred to give meaning to the contradictions of reality when reason alone fails to give order to the world.