The Summer exhibition of the National Gallery in Rome, from Davide Rivalta to George Drivas

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome introduces the two exhibitions Uncinematic and Corpo a Corpo, which are open to the public from the 22nd of June to the 24th of September. We have been at the inauguration of these exhibitions on the 21st of June, and we saw the installation of the artist Davide Rivalta, also taking part at  Festa della Musica, a pop festival to celebrate the Summer solstice.

Uncinematic - cinema by George Drivas

The exhibition of the Greek artist George Drivas consists in a selection of cinematographic artworks made between 2005 and 2014. Drivas makes videos based on the fade of time, and on its duration inside the narration. His photograms are conceived as photographs, recalling the “old way” to make cinema, and they are put next to each other in a paratactic way, with no temporal continuity. The idea comes from the union of photographs which have their own life, and their own reason to exist, even outside the narration. The photograms tell stories, the story of the man lost into the urban landscape with cold modernist architectures and inside aseptic and rigid interiors, in that parallel world which is proposed to us by Drivas. The static and dynamic images are joint together in a broken but complete narration, compared to the “no-rhythme of dreams“. His films could be set anywhere and at any time, and he is the one to highlight this peculiarity. Hence his stories are temporal and oneiric, their plots are deconstructed and make you feel disoriented in the space, this is Driva’s cinema.

Corpo a Corpo: the break up of art schemes through female body art

An exhibition curated by Paola Ugolini, which analyses the performance art, in particular the one born between the 60s and 70s, when  female artists were involved in developing a new unstructured and cutting-edge language, through the use of their own bodies as an expressive mean, with the scope of breaking up the categories in which arts where catalogued. We can mention Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivekovic, Gina Pane and many more. The exhibition analyses also the most recent artistic expression from the performances of Eleonora Chiari and Sara Goldschmied, Chiara Fumai, Silvia Gamberone and others. It is a review which goes through the story of the body art with the thematic fil rouge of feminism and the use of body as a tool for protest.

The Lions by Davide Rivalta

From Wednesday the 21st of June you can see five bronze lions by the artist Davide Rivalta on the staircase of Galleria Nazionale d’arte Moderna. The sculptures were made in relation of the mural drawings the same artist made on the corridors which links the north-east wing to the north-west wing of the Time is Out of Joint exhibition. From the wall paint referring to prehistory and the origin of civilisation, to the 3D materialisation of the beasts, almost if they were the guardians of the museum. “Hic sunt leones: at the Galleria Nazionale.  The lions are the emblem of its own history, but also symbol and metaphor of unexplored territories, of everything that is still to be discovered and of what will remain secret and preserved. A place where to host and live utopia. Where to gain courage, energy, strength, always aware and ready to action beyond any appearance.” Cristiana Collu, director of Nation Gallery.

Article by Elisa Martino