Adiacenze e AlbumArte
present the exhibition
WHEN IN ROME Beyond the boundaries of the skin
Verdiana Bove, Guglielmo Maggini, Pietro Moretti, Caterina Sammartino, Adelisa Selimbašić
curated by Adriana Polveroni
Opening:Thursday 9 January 2025, 18:30
Opened to public: 9 – 23 Januery 2025
Tuesday – Saturday 16.00 – 20.00
ADIACENZE
Bologna, vicolo dello Spirito Santo 1/B
From 9 to 23 January 2025, Adiacenze, a space for research and experimentation in contemporary visual arts in Bologna, present together with AlbumArte, an independent art production centre in Rome, where the first stage took place, the exhibition WHEN IN ROME. Beyond the boundaries of the skin, curated by Adriana Polveroni, with the new and site-specific art works made by Verdiana Bove, Guglielmo Maggini, Pietro Moretti, Caterina Sammartino and Adelisa Selimbašić.
The exhibition is the focus of the travelling project When in Rome, directed by Cristina Cobianchi, produced by AlbumArte and funded by Regione Lazio in the through the public notice Lazio Contemporaneo 2022.
The project takes place in seven Italian cities in collaboration with Adiacenze Bologna and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone, RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts, Casa degli Artisti Milan, Mucho Mas! Turin, Toast Project Space Florence, Zona Rosa Naples, CONDOTTO48 Rome. Previewed at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice on 10 June 2024, When in Rome, in addition to the two-stage exhibition, consists of a public program at Casa degli Artisti in Milan, Toast Project Space in Florence, Mucho Mas! in Turin, Quartiere Intelligente – Zona Rosa in Naples. When in Rome, the title abbreviated from When in Rome do as Romans do, is intended as a tribute to the attitude of foreigners who, having arrived in Rome, learn to ‘do as Romans do’ seduced by the city’s charm and its customs, and is also a tribute to a famous Genesis concert in 2007. At the centre of the project are the results of the survey conducted by Cristina Cobianchi and Adriana Polveroni on young talents under 35 working in Rome, especially in work spaces founded and managed with equally young curators in peripheral areas, in disused factories, ex-workshops or old garages, disused craft workshops, and who are changing the fabric and artistic ferment of the Capital with their open research into the present and dialogue with several voices. The exhibition by Verdiana Bove, Guglielmo Maggini, Pietro Moretti, Caterina Sammartino and Adelisa Selimbašić is based on their common reflection Beyond the boundaries of the skin and presents new and site-specific works that investigate the theme of marginality, understood as the ‘border that separates’, exactly like the skin that delimits the body from the outside and, at the same time, constitutes the first contact with the surrounding environment, the first possibility of knowledge. Even today, at a time when the body has undergone a radical transformation, placed at the centre of various social and cultural tensions, the skin is what primarily delimits, and thus defines, the body. Each artist involved in the project has his or her own original interpretation of the idea of ‘skin’ and the urge to go ‘beyond the periphery of the skin’. Beyond, therefore, the given boundaries. Not necessarily to overcome them in a sort of titanic tension, but perhaps to explore them in their marginality, in their being the periphery of a great decentralised body which is the same profound articulation, the inexhaustible alphabet of artistic practices. ‘Beyond the periphery of the skin’ indicates the need to place oneself in one’s own time, in the contingency of one’s own being in the world, initiating a confrontation of several voices. Applying this concept to Rome, often referred to as a Great Mother alternately holy and damned, the city is seen as a great organism, not without boundaries, the favourite place to observe, to investigate, with unprecedented possibilities of work and new interpretative paths.
Verdiana Bove (Rome, 1996) lives and works in Rome. She is co-founder of the Artist-Run Space CONDOTTO48. He has participated in several group and solo exhibitions in Rome and Italy. In particular: La Luce abbraccia tutto – Verdiana Bove and Luigi Ghirri, EDDart Palazzo Taverna, Rome (2023), Quando cosa felice cade, Le Nuove Stanze, Arezzo (2023) and Nuove vedute di Roma, Laboratorio KH, Rome (2022). The starting point of his research is family photographs or personal collections, used as a basis for merging real memories with dreamlike atmospheres.
Guglielmo Maggini (Rome, 1992) holds a degree in architecture and a master’s degree in Visual Arts from UAL – Camberwell College of Arts in London. His exhibitions include: Stairing – installazione permanente, International Museum of Ceramics, Faenza (2024); Contrappunti, z2o Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome (2024); Gubbio Biennial Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio (2023). Guglielmo Maggini’s work takes place on the border between installation and sculpture. Characteristic of his work is an art in transit from one world to another, where space is intended as plastic volume. Materials such as clay and synthetic materials such as rubbers, resins and more generally the world of plastic polymers come together in a sensitive research on the relationship between life and death, through a journey between historical and personal memory.
Pietro Moretti (Rome, 1996), currently lives and works in Berlin. In 2020 she graduated from the Slade School of Art, UCL, London. Moretti’s oil and watercolor paintings weave narratives in an atmosphere between the everyday and the fantastic to question the complexity of desire, identity and the body, especially in the adolescent period. His solo exhibitions include Il falò dei gonfiabili, Iannaccone Collection, Milan, Italy (2023), Le storture del cactus, Doris Ghetta Gallery, Milan, Italy (2023), and a participation in the solo Painting XXI section of Artefiera Bologna, Doris Ghetta Gallery (2024). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as Inneres Auge, Galerie Mazzoli, Berlin; Drive Me Acid, Museo Laboratorio Arte Contemporanea, Rome in 2024; Sensing Painting, Castello di Rivoli, Italy; Pittura italiana oggi, Triennale, Milan; Shipping Address, Palazzo Monti, Brescia in 2023; Figure Out, Unosunove, Rome; Il tempo scortese, Vacunalia, Vacone in 2022; Post fata resurgo, Spazio Amanita, Florence, Italy in 2021. Among the awards and residencies in which he has participated: Palazzo Monti (2023), Sicily Artists Residency Programme (2020), Robert Ross Price (2020). His works are part of public and private collections such as that of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli, Italy and the Collezione Giuseppe Iannaccone, Milan, Italy.
Caterina Sammartino (Rome, 1997) graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, she is co-founder of the Artist-Run Space CONDOTTO48. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions, including: Shaping grace and disquiet, ERA Gallery, Milan (2024);The Sun at Its Zenith, ERA Gallery, Milan (2024); L’Ombra Lunga, Palazzo Rospigliosi, Zagarolo (RM) (2024); PRESENTI, Palazzo Lucarini, Trevi (2023); Botanica, EDDart, Rome (2022); VII Biennale di Viterbo Arte Contemporanea, Viterbo (2022); Materia Nova – Roma nuove generazioni a confronto, GallerIa d’Arte Moderna di Roma (2021). In her work he prefers installation, using materials of natural origin, but also obsolete objects of everyday life, connecting them with the surroundings, expressed in artworks made of hemp and cotton, and in performative actions with a strong symbolic and relational charge.
Adelisa Selimbašić (Malsch Kreis Karlsruhe-Germany, 1996) now lives and works in New York. She is an Italian-Bosnian artist who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Her solo exhibitions include: Dust Bunny, Z2o Sara Zanin Gallery Rome (2024); Perché è così difficile dichiararsi?, IPERCUBO Gallery, Milan (2023); Beacon in the Bowery- Azuki Furuya, Fridman gallery, New York, USA (2023); group exhibitions: Soft Focus, Bradley Ertaskiran gallery, Montreal (2024); An Avarage Comet, Harkawik gallery, New York (2024). We remember his participation in Fountainhead residency in Miami, USA (2023). Her works are mainly portraits of bodies or faces in full canvas, enlarged portions apparently reassuring, often joyful, young women, portrayed exclusively among themselves, in a female universe whose decoding is left to the viewer.
Public program: Milan, Casa degli Artisti, Thursday 7 November; Florence, Toast Project Space, Thursday 5 December 2024; Turin, Mucho Mas!, Thursday 16 January 2025; Naples, Quartiere Intelligente – Zona Rosa, Thursday 23 January 2025.
Bologna, December 2024
Press kit and photos:
PRESS OFFICE:
Maria Bonmassar |+39 06 4825370; +39 335 490311 | ufficiostampa@mariabonmassar.com
Photos by Michele Amaglio courtesy AlbumArte
