Remembrance Day 2023: Rome hosts “Zakhor/remember. The civic museums of Rome and memory through art”. It's a project exhibition curated by Giorgia Calò which, until 12 February, proposes a reflection on the Shoah through six video installations, in as many locations of the Museum System of Rome Capital. Hosting the exhibition are: Centrale Montemartini, Ara Pacis Museum, Museum of Rome, Museum of Rome in Trastevere, Modern Art Gallery, Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture.
Zakhor/Remember
The exhibition project is promoted by Roma Culture, the Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, the Embassy of Israel in Italy and the Jewish Community of Rome. The Italy-Israel Foundation for Culture and the Arts also collaborates. The technical sponsor is Easylight, while the organizational support is provided by Zètema Progetto Cultura. The project is part of Memory generates Future, the program of appointments promoted by the Capitoline Department of Culture on the occasion of Remembrance Day 2023.
“Zakhor”, which in Hebrew means 'remember', arises from a reflection on the past and its elaboration in the present. Through the evanescence and inconsistency of the works, visible only on video, and their decontextualization with respect to the places that host them, the attempt is made to arouse in the public a reflection on what the Nazism was an absolute evil for the whole world. The medium becomes a message: the work that appears before our eyes could not exist, if only the plan of the "final solution" had been brought to completion. The viewer is thus invited to ask himself a disturbing question: how much culture has been taken away from humanity?
The artists involved
The chosen artists have dealt with the past in different ways, treating it from various points of view. From provocation to reflection, from accusation to resilience, all the works seem to cry out a warning. Remember and don't forget, a categorical imperative that runs through the entire Jewish tradition. Preserving memory, handing it down from generation to generation, not allowing time and death to make it fall into oblivion, is one of the reasons that moves artists and their creativity. The exhibition project also aims to encourage dialogue with the new generations, offering them an alternative and innovative look.
This is why the video installations are accompanied by a QR Code from which you can download the map of the museums concerned. In addition to a critical text that facilitates the use of the exhibition in its entirety, the history of the artists, their biographies and their production is narrated. The works created in the past by Israeli contemporary artists Boaz Arad (The Nazi Hunters Room at the Centrale Montemartini), Vardi Kahana (Three Sisters at the Ara Pacis Museum). Dani Karavan (Man walking on railways at the Museum of Rome), Simcha Shirman (Whose Spoon Is It? at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere), Micha Ullman (Second Home. Jerusalem – Rome at the Gallery of Modern Art) and Maya Zack (Counterlight at the Giovanni Barracco Museum of Ancient Sculpture).
Some of the artists on display are second generation, i.e. born after Second World War from parents who lived in Europe under the Nazi regime and suffered its horrors, fleeing from one place to another until they reached the Land of Israel. Born into families affected by the drama of the Holocaust, they inherited the feeling of emptiness and loss that accompanies their life and their art. The selected artists are among the most famous of the Israeli contemporary scene.
(Photo Facebook Museums in the Municipality of Rome)
