On Thursday 23 January 2025 at 6.30 p.m., Zona Rosa and AlbumArte, present at the Quartiere Intelligente in Naples the last meeting of the public programme of When in Rome, the touring project, curated by Adriana Polveroni, directed by Cristina Cobianchi, produced by AlbumArte and financed by the Regione Lazio within the public notice Lazio Contemporaneo 2022.
In dialogue will be Adriana Rispoli, curator and founder of Zona Rosa, Adriana Polveroni, curator of the project, the artists Verdiana Bove and Caterina Sammartino, two of the protagonists of the exhibition of the same name in Rome (from 18 November 2024 to 4 January 2025) and in Bologna (from 9 to 23 January 2025), and Cristina Cobianchi, who founded and directs AlbumArte.
The project stems from the research conducted on young talents under 35 working in Rome in work spaces founded and managed together in peripheral areas, artists who today, from those experimental spaces, with their research, are modifying not only the territory where they operate, but also the fabric and artistic ferment of the Capital.
The exhibition, focus of the project When in Rome by Verdiana Bove, Guglielmo Maggini, Pietro Moretti, Caterina Sammartino and Adelisa Selimbašić, is based on their common reflection Beyond the boundaries of skin and presents new and site-specific works that investigate the theme of marginality, understood as the ‘border that separates’, just like the skin that delimits the body from the outside and that, at the same time, constitutes the first contact with the surrounding environment, the first possibility of knowledge. Even today, at a time when the body has undergone a radical transformation, placed at the centre of various social and cultural tensions, the skin is what delimits, and thus primarily defines, the body.
Each artist involved in the project has his or her own original interpretation of the idea of “skin” and the urge to go “beyond the periphery of the skin”. Beyond, therefore, the given boundaries. Not necessarily to overcome them in a sort of titanic tension, but perhaps to explore them in their marginality, in their being the periphery of a great decentralised body which is the same profound articulation, the inexhaustible alphabet of artistic practices.
In the appointment in Naples, open to debate with the public, we will reflect on the way we perceive ourselves when the skin of the body we inhabit becomes the uncomfortable or suffered boundary of a disadvantage. It will examine the difficulties of this boundary with regard to gender differences and will look not at society as a whole, but at one part of it, the part that by definition sees itself as the most open to new visions, intellectually advanced and projected into the future.
Does mistrust still exist in the art world regarding the role of women artists and their work? Are the economic devaluations of their works really over? Does it make sense to identify purely female genres in artistic production?
A multi-voice reflection on the contemporary role of women in art.
BIOGRAPHIES
Verdiana Bove (Rome, 1996) lives and works in Rome. She is co-founder of the Artist-Run Space CONDOTTO48. She has participated in several group and solo exhibitions in Rome and nationwide. In particular: La Luce abbraccia tutto – Verdiana Bove e Luigi Ghirri, EDDart Palazzo Taverna, Rome (2023), Quando cosa felice cade, Le Nuove Stanze, Arezzo (2023) and Nuove vedute di Roma, Laboratorio KH, Rome (2022). The starting point for his research is family photographs or personal collections, intended as a basis for blending real memories with dreamlike atmospheres.
Caterina Sammartino (Rome, 1997) graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and is co-founder of the Artist-Run Space CONDOTTO48. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions, including: Shaping grace and disquiet, ERA Gallery, Milan (2024);The Sun at Its Zenith, ERA Gallery, Milan (2024); L’Ombra Lunga, Palazzo Rospigliosi, Zagarolo (RM) (2024); PRESENTI, Palazzo Lucarini, Trevi (2023); Botanica, EDDart, Rome (2022); VII Biennale di Viterbo Arte Contemporanea, Viterbo (2022); Materia Nova – Roma nuove generazioni a confronto, GallerIa d’Arte Moderna di Roma (2021). In his work, he prefers installations, using materials of natural origin, but also obsolete everyday objects, with a view to connecting them with their surroundings, which finds its expression in works made of hemp and cotton, and in performative actions with a strong symbolic and relational charge.
Cristina Dinello Cobianchi born in Venice, lives in Rome. She produces, directs and curates artistic and cultural projects in Italy and abroad. She founded and directs AlbumArte, an independent artistic and cultural production centre in Rome. In her research she favours young and emerging artists, often presenting foreign artists in Italy for the first time and Italian artists abroad. She realised the first artist residencies at the Italian Cultural Institutes (from 2010 to 2014). She has collaborated several times with important institutions such as MAXXI, Galleria Nazionale in Rome, Museo Madre in Naples, Polo del ‘900 in Turin, Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, Institut Francais, Real Academia de España, Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and Naples, as well as Galata Rum Okulu-Greek School in Istanbul. In 2020 he won the 8th edition of the Italian Council with the publication ALL BOOM ARTE Italian artists at AlbumArte 2011- 2020 (Quodlibet). With AlbumArte, she has won authoritative tenders including Tandem Paris Rome (2014) Mondriaan Fonds (2017), Italian Council (2020), Acción Cultural Española – AC/E (2020 and 2021), Regione Lazio (2021, 2024), Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo (2021 and 2022). The project she directed Dreamscape (2023) was selected for the first edition of the Biennale Son in Switzerland and this participation won the 12th Italian Council (2023). In 2022 she realised with AlbumArte a contemporary dance theatre production (Eva Frapiccini Dust of Dreams, choreography by Daniele Ninarello) invited to many festivals. She drafted with Daniela Trincia and other practitioners of Donne (non più) anonime, the project against gender violence started by both of them in 2016, the first Code of Ethics of the Art Community against violence against women (25 March 2023). She has written numerous texts for art books, monographs and edited several catalogues.
Adriana Polveroni was born and lives in Rome. She is a lecturer, essayist and independent curator. She is the author of many texts in collective volumes and three books: on contemporary art museums (This is Contemporary!, Franco Angeli), the market crisis (Lo Sboom, Silvana Editoriale) and collecting (Il Piacere dell’arte, Johan & Levi). She has curated solo exhibitions of, among others, Vittorio Corsini, Claudia Losi, Flavio de Marco and Giuseppe Pietroniro and group exhibitions (among others: ‘Il mio corpo nel tempo’, ‘Chi utopia mangia le mele’, ‘Arte/Natura Natura/Arte’). She has dealt with Landscape and Environmental Art, being author of the entry Art and Landscape in the Encyclopaedia Treccani XXI century. Since 2021 she has been artistic director of the modern and contemporary art fair Roma Arte in Nuvola. From 2017 to 2019 she directed ArtVerona. From 2012 to 2017 she directed Exibart. She collaborates regularly with RadioTre and after teaching at the Brera Academy, she now teaches Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts at NABA in Rome. She has been a member of the Scientific Committee of AlbumArte since 2015.
Napples January 2025
PRESS OFFICE:Maria Bonmassar |+39 06 4825370; +39 335 490311 | ufficiostampa@mariabonmassar.com
The project is funded by Regione Lazio through the Lazio Contemporaneo 2022 public initiative


In collaboration with Adiacenze Bologna e Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone, RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts, La Casa degli Artisti Milano, Mucho Mas! Torino, Toast Project Space Firenze, ZonaRosa – Quartiere Intelligente Napoli, CONDOTTO48 Roma.

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