“Architetture Terrone”: rethinking the house, geography and territory of a stigmatized tradition, historically rooted within the land.
It’s with this robust and sharp assertion in thoughts that Romina De Novellis (Naples, 1982)—a visible artist, performer, researcher, and anthropologist with Mediterranean roots, but lengthy based mostly in Paris—intends to formalize her solo exhibition on the Venetian venue of Alberta Pane Gallery.
Via the counter-ritual gestures of her longlasting performances, Romina De Novellis highlights, unhinges and dismantles binary and patriarchal frameworks ingrained in up to date thought.
In “Architetture Terrone”, particular consideration is given to fragile and ephemeral buildings, which within the artist’s performances change into visible and cognitive instruments for rethinking the South and the oppression of genders. Adopting an eco-feminist lens, De Novellis critiques societal constraints, challenges dominant gender paradigms, and interrogates the connection between humanity and nature.
In a retrospective strategy, the exhibition highlights among the most important performances Romina De Novellis has created over the previous fifteen years, primarily by a various array of installation-based units.
These ephemeral and momentary shows change into visible devices for rethinking house and the constraints traditionally tied to it. Although absent of the performer’s physique that when inhabited them, these buildings interact in dialogue with movies and pictures, which function important traces of De Novellis’s performative observe.
The gallery’s lengthy entrance hall welcomes guests with a rhythmic sequence of small pictures, documenting all of Romina De Novellis’s performances from 2009 to 2024. The exhibition then unfolds in the principle house, the place installations, movies, and large-scale pictures are proven.
Among the many works on show is Del maiale non si butta through niente (2022), first offered on the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The piece provides a essential reflection on the productivity-driven logic of the agri-food trade, drawing a parallel between feminine and animal our bodies, positioned in a situation of simultaneous co-presence and absence.
A equally eco-feminist sensibility emerges in Si tu m’aimes, protège-moi (2020-2021), the place the binomial denounce-care is central, and in Eurydice, a efficiency conceived in 2021 for the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, through which the parable of Eurydice and the Mediterranean traditions related to it are reread.
Then again, La Gabbia (2012-2016) and La Veglia (2012-2022), offered in set up and photographic kind, delve into the ethical, social, and cultural claustrophobia that pervades on a regular basis life, whereas a need for escape and freedom.
Because the exhibition continues into the second a part of the house, guests encounter the set up–efficiency Voulez-vous danser avec moi ? Merci, je ne préfère pas (2023), impressed by a attribute aspect of Southern Italian city structure: the standard Salento bandstand. First offered in sthe Jardin des Tuileries as a part of the Public Program of Artwork Basel Paris, the work displays on the solitude embedded in human relationships. Via this piece, the artist reimagines ritual custom and proposes a renewed significance for this architectural kind.
Via the physique and performative gesture, Romina De Novellis’s work provides a non-binary reimagining of house—as a type of resistance towards ritualistic, suffocating, and pervasive dynamics. Her observe advocates for an inclusive, feminist imaginative and prescient of id, liberated from imposed constraints.
In Architetture Terrone, social and cultural impositions—together with the constructs of custom, religion, faith, and household, and their repercussions on genders—are critically examined and subverted. Via sculptural buildings and performative units, De Novellis makes use of her personal physique to provide aesthetic, conceptual, and poetic kind to among the most pressing and urgent problems with our time.
Romina De Novellis (born in Naples in 1982, presently residing and dealing in Paris) grew up in Rome and has been based mostly in Paris since 2008. After graduating in 1999 from the Royal Academy of Dance in London (RAD certification), she continued her research on the DAMS division of Roma Tre College, later helping Luigi Squarzina with the creative route on the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. In Paris, she pursued analysis in anthropology, which culminated in a doctorate on the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Following years devoted to bounce and theater, and a major accident that pressured her to shift profession paths, De Novellis present in efficiency—notably in long-duration practices—the medium by which to redefine and categorical her creative imaginative and prescient.
The artist attracts on eco-feminist theories and geopolitical reflections to problem the constraints imposed by up to date society. Via the physique, she disrupts gender paradigms and requires a redefinition of the dichotomous male-female and man-nature relationships. The Mediterranean and the South—each as geographical areas and as symbolic, cultural areas—lie on the coronary heart of her poetics, representing territories of battle and reminiscence, belonging and transition.
Marches and processions outline a conceptual exploration through which the physique—concurrently topic and object—turns into a software for social, political, and anthropological inquiry. Her tableaux vivants, constructed from repetitive gestures, mirror the essence of humanity, exposing the physique’s capability to occupy house as an act of resistance. The artist regularly attracts from classical artwork iconography, making a connection between previous and current, the place ritual, custom, and up to date relevance converge.
Constant along with her creative analysis, Romina De Novellis based DOMUS Artist Residency in 2019, a residency and analysis initiative based mostly in Galatina, Lecce, Italy. This venture engages in dialogue with Atelier Essenza, a French affiliation established in Paris in 2014. Each organizations advocate for an intersectional, eco-feminist, and anti-violence strategy, fostering inclusive methods for ‘various’ our bodies by pedagogy, scientific analysis, and creative creation.
