VILLA ROMANA - HOME
VILLA ROMANA - HOME

Exhibitions

04 Oct                     01 Nov 2019

Monumento (s)fatto
Bruno Baltzer /Leonora Bisagno, Nicolas Milhé
Balkan Pavilion
Eva Sauer, Sarah Sajn and Totem MonuMed

We warmly invite you and your friends to the opening of the exhibition
on Friday, 04 October, at 7 pm.

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 2 - 6 pm and by appointment


rosa murales

Bruno Baltzer /Leonora Bisagno, La panchina di Luis Simon, 2019, five parts of a block of white Carrara marble

rosa murales

Bruno Baltzer /Leonora Bisagno, Si je me souviens, 2019, photo prints

rosa murales

Nicolas Milhé, La garde, 2019, bronze

rosa murales

Nicolas Milhé, Rosa Luxemburg, 2015, bronze

rosa murales

Eva Sauer with Sarah Sajn, Hysteresis, 2019, wood, photo prints, prefabricated lettering on glass

photos: Ela Bialkowska /OKNO studio


In two complementary parts, Monumento (s)fatto and Balkan Pavilion, the first exhibition of the multidisciplinary research project Monumed, is focusing on forms of monumentalization in the urban environments of the Balkan and Mediterranean regions.

Based on an analysis of the cyclical dynamics of monumental practices, the artists Bruno Baltzer /Leonora Bisagno and Nicolas Milhé have created Monumento (s)fatto, an exhibition course consisting of two sections. The artist duo Baltzer/Bisagno deals with the material dimension of the monument, evoking on the one hand the processes of global standardization to which it is subject and on the other its dematerialization, with a view to the new forms of participation that tend to subvert the roles and functions of the monumental object. Using the example of the Carrara marble, the artists examine the effects of the production processes of the individual monument, bringing to light complex regional socio-economic and socio-ecological issues. In the second section, inspired by historical figures and objects, the sculptures of Nicolas Milhé concentrate on the ambiguity of monuments and point to the precarious balance between representation of power and counter-monument. Milhé emphasizes the dark side of power, the moment humanity disappears to leave room for violence.

In addition to the exhibition, the Balkan Pavilion serves as a research laboratory. The artist Eva Sauer and the political scientist Sarah Sajn investigate the processes of individualization and instrumentalization of culture of remembrance with reference to the partisan cemetery in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, designed by the architect Bogdan Bogdanvić. Recorded lectures and discussions from a series of seminars in Marseille in spring 2019 as well as artistic film contributions by Igor Grubić, Alban Hajdinaj, Stefano Romano and Stefanos Tsivopoulos are placed as the final element in a dialogue with the works shown in the exhibition.


Bruno Baltzer and Leonora Bisagno work as an artist duo since 2014. They analyse the contemporary condition of representation, both official and spontaneous, through installations and interventions. Baltzer and Bisagno employ multiple forms for their projects, ranging, among other things, from tourism photography to election posters, advertising neons and television archive material.

Nicolas Milhé lives and works between Paris and Bordeaux. He uses many different media in his work (sculptures, monumental installations, drawings, videos, etc.), to transform the symbolic forms of power and trace their contradictions and paradoxes. Though he claims his works are free from any form of activism, they do evoke political and social issues.

Eva Sauer was born in Florence and moved to Düsseldorf in 1985. She studied at the HfbK, Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. In her work she combines photography and word, sometimes pairing them with objects /sculptures as well. The main theme of her works are the different and sometimes subtle forms of violence and collective existential fears.

Sarah Sajn is a PhD candidate in Political Science at CHERPA /Sciences Po Aix and a lecturer at the Université de Lille 2. Her research analyses the culture of memory, the Europe /European Union dialectic and post-colonial, post-conflict and post-socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her studies explore the symbolic and material dimension of the power struggles associated with the institutionalization of memory.


Artistic and scientific directors: Alessandro Gallicchio, curator and Pierre Sintès, geographer.


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