La Biblioteca del Mondo. Conversation Piece Part IX

Convesation Piece is an annual exhibition cycle organized by Fondazione Memmo to narrate the city’s art scene, particularly as regards the activities of foreign academies and cultural institutes, and to provide an overview of Italian and foreign artists who have chosen Rome as their place of residence, activity and work. Over the years, almost forty artists from all over the world have participated in the various editions.

The title chosen for this ninth edition, La Biblioteca del Mondo - The World’s Library, is a direct reference to Umberto Eco’s renowned private library at the center of Davide Ferrario’s eponymous documentary, to which the Italian intellectual and writer assigned the function of storing the collective memories of humanity. The artists involved belong to different generations but share the use of books as a sort of “construction material” for their artworks. Their works are arranged in a sequence that starts from the facade of Palazzo Ruspoli and continues in the courtyard and the Scuderie, evoking the image of a library as a repository of universal culture and collective imagination.

The exhibition features Yael Bartana (1970, Israel) with the still videos Scenes from Malka Germany and with The Book of Malka Germany; Nicolò Degiorgis (Bolzano, Italy, 1985) with the installation Heimatkunde; Bruna Esposito (1960, Rome) with the video installation L’Infinito di Leopardi nella Lingua dei segni italiana/The Infinite by Leopardi in Italian Sign Language; Claire Fontaine (a collective founded in Paris by Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill) with the Brickbat series; Paolo Icaro (1936, Turin, Italy) with Equilibrio; Kapwani Kiwanga (1978, Hamilton) with Greenbook (1961); Francis Offman (1987, Rwanda) with the site-specific installation (Untitled) and Ekaterina Panikanova (1975, St. Petersburg, Russia) with the site-specific installation Untitled (Forest). Finally, Marcello Maloberti (1966, Codogno) created two site-specific interventions: MARTELLATE/HAMMERINGS on the facade of Palazzo Ruspoli on Via del Corso, and CHI MI PROTEGGE DAI TUOI OCCHI/WHO PROTECTS ME FROM YOUR EYES in the courtyard of the Palazzo’s stable block.

Ekaterina Panikanova, Untitled (Forest), 2023
site-specific installation, wood, ceramics, books, ink
ph. Daniele Molajoli, Courtesy the artist, z2o Sara Zanin, Rome, Fondazione Memmo, Rome