MACRO presents UNAROMA Flashback, a special event connected to the exhibition UNAROMA: a choral journey across the art scene of the capital from the 1980s to the present.
The encounter, moderated by the artistic director Cristiana Perrella, unfolds as a narrative marked by the passage of time, with contributions from Laura Cherubini, critic, curator, and art historian, covering the 1980s; Stefano Chiodi, critic and art historian, covering the 1990s; Manuela Pacella, art historian and critic, covering the 2000s; and Giuseppe Armogida, curator and art critic, covering the 2010s. Four voices, four decades, four perspectives from the Roman cultural and academic panorama, to assemble an overview of the polymorphic image of a city that has a remarkable story to tell.
Scheduled for the opening weekend of the museum’s new artistic season, the event is conceived as a historical prequel to the UNAROMA exhibition, curated by Luca Lo Pinto and Cristiana Perrella. UNAROMA Flashback thus offers a valuable historical and educational context for the large group show, which, featuring more than 70 artists from different generations and with diverse approaches, reflects Rome’s hybrid, generative, and constantly evolving art scene.
The event takes place in the auditorium.
Entry is free of charge while seats last.
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LAURA CHERUBINI (Rome, 1955) is an art critic and historian. A student of Giulio Carlo Argan and Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, she took a degree with Maurizio Calvesi on Giordano Bruno. Since 1992 she has chaired the department of Contemporary Art History at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, in Milan, and she has taught at various Italian academies and universities (including La Sapienza and LUISS). From 2011 to 2017 she was vice-president of the MADRE Museum of Naples, and in 2019 she directed the opening of the MACTE in Termoli, where she now chairs the steering committee. She has taken part in many juries and commissions (PS1-MoMA, MAXXI, Premio Furla, Premio New York, Premio Maretti, Premio Rotary-Brera) and she is a member of various artists’ archives (Franco Angeli, Fabio Mauri, Gino Marotta, Alighiero Boetti). She contributes on a regular basis to magazines and newspapers, including Flash Art, and curated exhibitions inside Italian and international institutions like the Venice Biennale, MAXXI, MADRE, GNAM, Fondazione Merz and MoMA New York. She has published essays, interviews and monographs on many artists (including Gino De Dominicis, Ettore Spalletti, Fabio Mauri, Vettor Pisani and Alighiero Boetti), and in 2020 she published the volume Controcorrente. I grandi solitari dell’arte italiana (Marinotti).
MANUELA PACELLA (Rome, 1977) is an art critic and historian. As an independent curator she has focused on cultural exchanges between Italy and various Central and Northern European countries. In particular, she is an expert on the art scene in North Ireland, where she has produced projects and exhibitions in spaces like the Golden Thread Gallery (2012), MAC Belfast (2017) and Void Art Centre in Derry (2022). She has also taken part in intensive courses and residencies at Flax Art Studios in Belfast and the CCA in Derry (in collaboration with ICI-Independent Curators International, New York). She contributes regularly to books and exhibition catalogues, and to national and international sector magazines. Her publications include Patria interiore (NERO, 2012), Bertille Bak. La fiaba del reale (Postmedia Books, 2018) and Tell me stories! (Politi Seganfreddo edizioni, 2024), a book based on the column of the same title published in Flash Art Italia from 2020 to 2024. Today she concentrates on writing and publishing, and teaches in Rome at the Accademia di Belle Arti, l’AUR-American University of Rome, IED Design and NABA.
GIUSEPPE ARMOGIDA (Catanzaro, 1985) is a professor of Aesthetics at the Accademia di Belle Arti L’Aquila and NABA in Rome. His research interests focus on the contemporary debate on image theory and the relationships between philosophy and psychoanalysis. In 2020 he founded Miniera, a curatorial project that sets out to investigate the relations between music, visual art and the meaning of places, through the organization of artistic events taking place in different locations each time. His latest books are Roma nuda. 60 conversazioni sull’arte (Miniera, 2020) and Ritorno a Lascaux. Georges Bataille e la genesi dell’arte (Castelvecchi, 2024).