‘Who’s afraid of the dark?’ is the first in a trilogy of exhibitions called ‘The Dark Side’, curated by Danilo Eccher. The exhibition involves twelve of the most important international artists with large site-specific installations: from masters recognised throughout the world, such as Gregor Schneider, Robert Longo, Hermann Nitsch, Tony Oursler, Christian Boltanski to the new protagonists of the contemporary art scene such as Monster Chetwind, Sheela Gowda, Shiota Chiharu. The works represent the ‘dark side’ that is in each of us, the real or presumed stumbles of life that impose a pause, that make the heart beat, but at the same time light new possibilities, new thoughts, new perspectives.
GREGOR SCHNEIDER ‘End of the Museum’ at Musja, Rome
May 27, 2020
Gregor Schneider’s ‘End of the Museum’ is an installation within Rome’s Musja Museum. To create this work, Schneider selected and burned dozens of paintings from the Ovidio Jacorossi collection. The result is a scorched prelude to the main exhibition space: you have to cross the ashes to enter a new course. This apocalyptic tunnel-corridor is linked to fear, but also suggest that the dark can illuminate something that we didn’t notice before.
Schneider’s work is centred on explorations of emotional states of distress, often installed in claustrophobia-inducing spaces. Curator Danilo Eccher describes, “when I told [Schneider] I wanted him to create a work for a new museum he said: ‘OK, then we destroy the old one.’” The canvases all came from Jacorossi’s collection, which Schneider arranged on the wall and then took a torch to. “We chose not the most interesting ones” Eccher says, “after the flames, there is always a new beginning. The flames give the paintings new shapes, intoxicated after the fact.”
You can visit the museum website HERE.
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