Artribune "The strength of the ruins. An exhibition flawless in Rome" by Isabella Calidonna

"National Museum, Rome - until January 31, 2016. A precise scientific project, more than an exhibition, on an issue more topical than ever. "The strength of the ruins" calls for careful reflection on the value of the memory and the need to preserve it. 

BEYOND THE EXHIBITION, THE SCIENTIFIC PROJECT

That staged at Palazzo Altemps, which opens new spaces for the occasion, not the canonical exhibition of bucolic landscapes dotted with ruins and vestiges of antiquity, whose history has handed down memory . It is a collection of current, combined with antiquity to which it binds the fabulous environment of the building that houses The strength of the ruins , promoted by the Superintendence for the Colosseum, the Roman National Museum and the archaeological area of Rome. The exhibition comes from a well articulated scientific project, to be exact from a study published a few years ago by Marcello Barbanera, teacher of classical archeology at La Sapienza, curator of the same together with Alessandra Capodiferro, director of the Museum of Palazzo Altemps. Not a show for its own sake, but incorporating the works of the permanent collection, beautiful artistic temporary, thus increasing the richness of the narrative and reinforcing the message that may be a warning and a source of creative energy for the future.

SHINING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN

The exhibition runs through all the rooms of the museum and structure their priorities " as a guest by brilliant conversation, but that does not give the item . " The dialogue between old and contemporary is the common thread that binds the two collections. The curators of the exhibition tell how the " feature of the ruins is the ambivalence: are the border guards of the time that has invested and modeled, reducing them to the wall collapsed, ghosts of a building once intact; on the other hand, precisely this stubborn resistance to the inexorable passing of time, as witnessed by the physical presence of the building gives way to the ruins of life, making them an anchor for the memory . " The very word "ruin" leads to a reflection not unique, but embraces all nine sections that make up the exhibition, whose very definition of shows turns out to be reductive saw his protean aspect. Reflections that come to the mind of the observer along the way, where is in continuous meditation on the element itself is observed and there arises the question on the ambivalence, incompleteness and the need to conserve memory.

A TRAGIC BEAUTY

section Landscapes ruined back strong and pounding Article 9 of our Constitution. Ruins, in fact, are the destruction wrought by man with his eco-monsters due to speculation, or because of war, greed for greatness. Natural disasters and man-made; wars, nuclear disasters, earthquakes and bombings presented through the medium of painting, photography and film. Of course, there remains as we know them. Those engraved by Piranesi for example, which is dedicated an entire section, or the cast of the Belvedere Torso evoking the theme of ancient sculpture and its influence on all the great art history. An exhibition where the beauty, even tragic, takes us to the end. "

Isabella Calidonna