ROME. From 20 November through to 17 January 2016 MAXXI will be devoting to the Brazilian artist César Meneghetti the exhibition CÉSAR MENEGHETTI. I\O_ IO È UN ALTRO, curated by Simonetta Lux (progetto scientifico di Simonetta Lux e Alessandro Zuccari). The exhibition features previously unseen works born out of an intense process of relations between the artist and the disabled persons involved in the Sant’Egidio Community’s Art Workshops: works in which they are the protagonists than which reveal the lengthy exchange of ideas and reflections on the world and contemporary society with the artist.
Video installations, sound installations and photographs make up the display in the Carlo Scarpa Hall, starting with I\O_OPERA #01 VIDEOCABINA #3, a key work portraying men and women with disabilities in a dialogue that draws in the spectator: a gallery of people presenting themselves for who they are and expressing themselves clearly on universal issues such as love, solitude, happiness, death, normality and diversity. With I\O_OPERA #03 EX-SISTENTIA the artist instead reveals how those who are affected by autism can perceive the surrounding space, how they experience their thoughts, while I\O_OPERA #06 LOVISTORI is a multiple part account of a special love story. The exhibition also includes I\O_OPERA #08 PASSAGGI-PAESAGGI composed of four monitors showing images of “blindfolded” people walking: a metaphor for our ephemeral, unknowing, ignored existence, the sole certainly of which is our passage on this earth. Thanks to these works, the most widespread prejudices are undermined in the face of a new logic: the people with disabilities are revealed as having a surprising capacity for imagining, perceiving, thinking and depicting reality and an unsuspected talent for analysis. The exhibition also includes an area specifically conceived as a documentation centre – Spazio DOC – in which visitors may leave evidence of their passing, of their opinions about the project and the works on show. With this exhibition César Meneghetti, ever interested in research into geographical, political, linguistic and mental confines, affirms the revolutionary and transformative potential of art, capable of modifying our perception of reality and of ourselves and to offer an opportunity for sharing experiences. As the artist declares in reference to this work: “(… ) within the context of the creation I immediately identified with them and they with me. Art conformed itself as a privileged territory for the exchange of experiences and idea, for research into new meanings for both the artistic project and above all for the evolution of being. (… ) art cannot reach its objective if it precludes something or someone, nobody should be excluded or relegated to a land of silence and isolation. I am convinced that it is possible to produce alternative spaces, visions and logic there where many believe nothing, not even thought is to be found.”
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