Federica Luzzi and Naoya Takahara. Exercises in being like others

Curated by Giuseppe Garrera and organised by Assessorato alla Cultura di Roma Capitale, Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and Fondazione Mattatoio di Roma - Città delle Arti, the free exhibition in Pavilion 9a of the Mattatoio Roma explores the confrontation and dialogue between the Italian sculptor Federica Luzzi (born in Rome) and the Japanese artist Naoya Takahara (born in Ehime but domiciled in Rome since 1977), uniting East and West in their shared search for propitious places.

Sculptures, installations, fragile sheets, fabrics, stitching, and false monuments transform the pavilion of the former Slaughterhouse into a visual journey in which each piece is a song and a constant fear of suffering violence to the body, to one’s own body, and to its play. Objects, sculptures and textiles, everything is, at the same time, a sign of obstinacy and stubbornness and the actual impossibility of abiding by the laws of the world as it is.

All of Luzzi’s and Takahara’s works disregard the world’s commands (the precepts of family and school, the assured happiness of conformity, the trust in advertising) and become lost and enchanted in the attempt to understand why this happens, why, as the poet Guidacci said, the unknown and solitude deepen when one would wish to be like everyone else. What is the grace of diversity? Or the happiness, at a certain point, of knowing that the last ones, of whom we are a part, will, fortunately, remain the last.