EXHIBITIONS

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EXHIBITIONS

Museums and archaeological sites in Rome are open and operating under their normal hours, with covid-19 protocols in place, including the obligatory wearing of masks. Weekend visits to the more popular sites such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon must be booked at least one day in advance. For updates check the websites of venues as well as our website, www.wantedinrome.com.

PIETRO PASOLONI: WE ARE THE LAND

23 JUNE-30 SEPT

Galleria Valentina Bonomo presents the new cycle of works by the RomanBrazilian born artist Pietro Pasolini, created in direct response to the dramatically accelerating destruction of the world’s forests. Pasolini’s latest exhibition asks us to think about trees, forests and the natural world whose biodiversity is being lost at 100 times the normal rate due to reckless human intervention. The show opens with a large-scale aerial photograph of the Ecuadorian rainforest taken with a drone during the artist’s trip to the Amazon. The gallery’s second room acts as the heart of the forest, with large copper panels containing depictions and imprints of leaves and foliage. The gallery describes the atmosphere creating by the photograms as an “almost fairytalelike realm,” bridging the gap between photography, sculpture and See cover this edition. Galleria Valentina Bonomo, Via del Portico d’Ottavia 13, www.galleriabonomo.com.

ANGELO TITONEL: TO MY DAUGHTER

15 JUNE-10 JULY

The poignant rediscovery of a longlost folder of works that noted Italian painter Angelo Titonel gifted his 21-year-old daughter in the mid-1990s has led to an exhibition. Titonel, a leading figure in the Italian Magic Realism movement, gave 21 oilon-paper paintings as a birthday gift to his daughter, Daina Maja Titonel, who years later would open her own gallery on Via Monserrato. “Only now do I realise that these works – which I believed I had lost during a move – together form a corpus. As such, their destiny can finally come to fruition in this exhibition, whose title deliberately tributes the past becoming a sort of dedication, a gift, a possibility,” says Daina Maja Titonel. The paintings’ small, precious format is shared with the public for the first time now, 30 years after their creation, “so as to return the trust received through that special gift to the giver — my father. I do not think he imagined then that I would open my own art gallery...” Titonel, who died in 2018, was commissioned to paint portraits of Italian presidents as well as Pope Benedict XVI. Via di Monserrato 30, tel. 0668804621, www.majartecontemporanea.com.

Damien Hirst at Galleria Borghese.

DAMIEN HIRST AT GALLERIA BORGHESE

8 JUNE-7 NOV

Galleria Borghese – home to masterpieces by Bernini, Canova and Caravaggio – presents the

works of contemporary British artist Damien Hirst in a new exhibition titled Archaeology Now. The show includes more than 80 works from Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable series, featuring monumental and smallscale sculptures made from bronze, rock crystal, coral and Carrara marble. Also on display in the Rome exhibition, curated by Anna Coliva and Mario Codognato, are Hirst’s Colour Space paintings, exhibited in Italy for the first time. Held with the support of luxury fashion house Prada, the exhibition will see Hirst’s colossal sculpture, Hydra and Kali, displayed outdoors in the Secret Garden of the Uccelliera. Galleria Borghese says the installation stems from Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, exhibited for the first time in 2017 in Venice at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. Critics were divided when the works were displayed, with a review in The Art Newspaper stating: “This is what art looks like when unbridled ambition meets apparently limitless financial resources.” The Daily Telegraph dismissed the shipwreck treasure show as “a spectacular, bloated folly” however the Guardian described it as “a titanic return to form” for Hirst. Retracing his colourful career, the Rome retrospective highlights the multimedia approach of the British artist who is known for his provocative art charged with social commentary. Hirst shot to international fame in 1991 with The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, featuring a shark in formaldehyde, and gained new audiences in 2007 with For the Love of God, a diamond-encrusted platinum cast of a skull. Reservations obligatory, via Galleria Borghese website. TuesSun 09.00-17.00. Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, tel. 068413979, www. galleriaborghese.beniculturali.it.

WORLD PRESS PHOTO

28 MAY-22 AUG

The 2021 edition of the World Press Photo exhibition is being held for the first time at the Mattatoio, the former slaughterhouse in Rome’s Testaccio district. The 64th annual World Press Photo Contest drew entries from around the world: 4,315 photographers from 130 countries submitted more than 74,000 images. Each year an independent jury at the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam selects images for this prestigious recognition of international photojournalism, with winners selected in eight categories including general news, sports, the environment and portraits. The exhibition provides a chance to look back over the dramatic and hard-hitting world events that took place over a most intense last year. Among the highlights on display at the Mattatoio is Danish photographer Mad Nissen’s winner of the first prize of the World Press Photo 2021. Taken last August in Sao Paulo, the image shows Rosa Luzia Lunardi, a resident of the Viva Bem nursing home, being embraced by nurse Adriana Silva. Due to covid restrictions, it was the 85-year-old patient’s first hug in five months, received courtesy of The Hug Tent, a clear plastic curtain whose yellow edges were folded into a shape resembling a pair of butterfly wings. The coronavirus pandemic features highly in the exhibition which documents other major issues over the last year, from the Black Lives Matter movement to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. Mattatoio, Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4, www.mattatoioroma.it.

World Press Photo. © Evelyn Hockstein, United States, for The Washington Post.

ROMA: NASCITA DI UNA CAPITALE

16 MAY-26 SEPT

Palazzo Braschi hosts an exhibition that explores the first decades after the city became the capital of the united Italy in 1870. Titled Rome: Birth of a capital 1870-1915, the show comprises more than 600 works and documents, taking the visitor on an historic, urbanarchitectural, political and social itinerary through the modern capital and its early protagonists. Starting from the Capture of Rome at Porta Pia in 1870, the exhibition delves into the archaeological excavations, demolitions and reconstructions that shaped the capital of the newly-formed Kingdom of Italy. The exhibition also illustrates sociocultural changes, from politics and art to trade, tourism and sport, leading up to the outbreak of world war one. Palazzo Braschi. Piazza Navona 2, tel. 060608, www. museodiroma.it.

TOTA ITALIA

14 MAY-25 JULY

An unprecedented exhibition at the Scuderie del Quirinale presents 450 artefacts which provide insights into the history of the culture, conflict and politics that shaped Italy and Rome, the seat of the Roman empire, from the fourth century BC to the Julio-Claudian age. The ancient works on display (marble statues, friezes, jewels and