may 29, 2019 - Musei in Comune Roma

Wechselspiel, installations by Paolo Bielli and Susanne Kessler in the cloister/garden of the Modern Art Gallery of Rome

Two passages that connect to the current exhibition “Women. Body and image between symbol and revolution” and the sculptures of the cloister

Galleria d’Arte Moderna
30 maggio – 13 ottobre 2019

Rome, May 29, 2019 – Wechselspiel (Interplay, in a broader sense interaction) is the title of the two site-specific installations by #paolobielli and #susannekessler, hosted in the cloister/garden of the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Rome from May 30th to October 13th 2019. Both works are directly linked to the exhibition in progress “Women, body and image between symbol and revolution” and to the sculptures of the Museum's permanent collection.
The initiative is promoted by #roma Capitale, Department of Cultural Growth - Superintendence for Cultural Heritage. Museum services are provided by Zètema Culture Project.

Paolo Bielli and #susannekessler use the subject of the exhibition, the woman's body and its evolution in contemporary art, as a starting point, and develop around this theme a game of dualism by creating two passages, in a physical as well as ironic way. In their installations the concepts of man and woman, male and female, but also of shadow and light, reveal their two sided aspects by positioning their works in direct contact with the sculptures of the Gallery, contrasting them with their site specific interventions.

Paolo Bielli intervenes by covering part of the floor around the sculptures with white / black shapes, thus filling the void under the sculptures feet with a kind of mental checkerboard and shiny reflections. Belli`s reflection of Cleopatra (1882) by Girolamo Masini, for example, is expanded horizontally on the floor. The ground underneath her is filled with cut-out male silhouettes. In the sequences of black and white, lights and shadows, abundance and void, Bielli's interventions actually reinforce the emptiness that is, moreover, inherent to the human condition. In the same way the floor around Giovanni Melli's Lovers (1909-1913) is filled with the mutual reflection in the white and black shapes. A passage full of his cut -out shapes will lead to the external part of the cloister of the Gallery, in the precise sense of the word Wechselspiel–interchange, contrasting the structure of the Museum and the emptiness of the sky above.

Susanne Kessler's artistic interventions are in even closer touch with the sculptures of the collection. She works in particular on the visual expression of the "strong man". She simply adds a typically feminine technique, the embroidery, directly to the male sculptures of the Thirties in the form of embroideries in stitching frames. She “replaces”, or covers, for example, the sword of Romulus (1937-38) by Italo Griselli or the hands and tools of the Pescatore d'anguilla (1934) by Dino Basaldella (this intervention will be seen only the day of the opening, and afterwards it will be placed on iron structures and mirrors side by side with the sculptures). The male figure represented by great sculptors of the Italian twentieth century, looses his dominant character and physical strength, as in the striking physicality of the Seminatore / sower (1937) by Ercole Drei, and will be "transformed" into uncommon image of a man who with patience and delicacy stitches and concentrates on his embroidery. A mythological reference to Penelope, but also to women of other times who t home busied themselves in their free time with handcrafts, while their men and sons crossed the oceans of the world.

In the small interior cloister instead Kessler will exhibit her Mappa Mundi, consisting of a set of 14 embroideries of maps in variable sizes, made of cotton and gauze fabric, bamboo sticks, wire, positioned above the ”woman bather” (1934) of Marino Marini. The work will be consciously installed over the head of Marini`s female sculpture, in order to indicate how the woman today has the whole world in her range of action.

During the inauguration, Bielli will execute a performance called The Black and White ring, linked symbiotically to his site specific. Presenting himself in the role of a boxer, a sport now also practiced by women, with the aim to exalt the role of women, increasingly protagonist of their lives. The non-color, white / black, simulates a piano keyboard effect, to harmonize the old and the new, as the classic and the pop in music. The artist will leave his “ring” (stage) to immediately enter into another. The mimesis of the daily struggle that does not admit the absence of obstacles until the final victory: the typical ending of his performances. This time, however, it will be overwhelmed by a material rain made up of cassette tapes, in order to emphasize the human greed to possess.

Further information in the press release to download