The Grande Cretto (Great Crevice) is a site-specific land art work created by Alberto Burri between 1984 and 1989 on the site where the old town of Gibellina – which was completely destroyed in 1968 by the earthquake that devastated the Belice region – used to stand. Burri has designed an enormous work which, retraces and is spread over the streets and alleys of the old city: the “Cretto” stands directly on the rubble of the city. Burri recounts his first visit: “A winding road, burnt by the sun and winds, meanders [...] until it leads us, after miles of desolate human absence, to a pile of ruins [...]. I almost felt like crying and immediately hit on the idea. [...] we will compact the rubble, reinforce it properly, and make an immense crevice with concrete so that it can remain as a perennial memory of this disaster.”
