At the National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome (MAXXI), two exhibitions are inaugurated today that tell of Africa in all its complexity and beauty.
The first is entitled African Metropolis. An imaginary city, curated by Simon Njami and co-curated by Elena Motisi, and is hosted from 22 June to 4 November 2018. This project was strongly desired by Giovanna Melandri, President of the MAXXI Foundation, with the aim of showing and making people perceive the art and culture as instruments of dialogue and cultural diplomacy: "it is an opportunity for us to meet and collaborate with the African communities present in Rome and who have been involved in an intense activity of intercultural mediation, interpreting the works on display according to their personal experiences”, explains Melandri.
The exhibition is divided into 100 works produced by 34 artists that each of them refers to the most common elements of the contemporary metropolitan city. The city conceived by the curators is imaginary, it is not in Africa, nor in Europe, nor in America, yet it is in every place and in every person.
"The city is a discourse, and this discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak our city, the city where we find ourselves, simply inhabiting it, walking through it, looking at it", the words of Roland Barthes fully embody the sense that the curators wanted to convey with the African Metropolis exhibition.
The second exhibition is entitled Road to Justice and refers more to the sentimental dimension connected to the African continent, thinking of anger, violence, colonization, but also of hope and forgiveness. This exhibition is curated by Anne Palopoli and will remain on display from 22 June to 14 October 2018. On display are 11 works by 9 artists that are declined in photographs, videos, paintings and installations that cover three different temporal stages: present, past and future.
To learn more about the themes dear to both exhibitions, read the article "Italy calls Africa: reconciliation in art” is available on the specialist website FIRST Art (www.www.firstonline.info).
