AI WEIWEI,LA COMMEDIA UMANA, TERME DI DIOCLEZIANO ROMA
LA COMMEDIA UMANA – AI WEIWEI | Terme di Diocleziano Roma | 25.03 – 03.04.2022
Berengo Studio and Museo Nazionale Romano are delighted to invite you to encounter La Commedia Umana by Ai Weiwei in the Baths of Diocletian. Composed of more than two thousand pieces of hand-blown and fused glass by the glass maestros of Berengo Studio in Murano, La Commedia Umana is an enormous chandelier of colossal dimensions (more than six metres wide by almost nine metres high) that, with its four tons of weight, descends from the ceiling of one of the halls of the ancient Baths. It is one of the largest sculptures ever created in Murano glass and will be unveiled in the largest thermal complex in all of antiquity.
The monumental sculpture is the result of a three-year collaboration between the famous Chinese artist and activist and Berengo Studio’s master craftsmen, and although it was started well before the outbreak of COVID-19 its dramatic cascade of bones, skulls, and organs cannot help but conjure a striking monument to the lives lost over the course of the pandemic.
Through his work, Ai Weiwei, whose artistic creations and political activity are inseparable, sends a clear message about the mutability of life and at the same time sends a warning to think of the future, to strive for something more for the legacy of humanity beyond the bones we shall leave behind. It is a work that, in the words of the artist: “attempts to speak of death in order to celebrate life.”
La Commedia Umana will be on show to the public at the Terme di Diocleziano from the 25th of March till the 3rd April 2022.
Coinciding with this unique installation the Galleria Continua opens an exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s work in Rome Change of Perspective which runs from the 25th of March till the 22nd May 2022.
Photos museo nazionale romano
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