Portfolio is one of the two exhibition cycles of the program Quotidiana at the Museo di Roma- Palazzo Braschi conceived and produced by La Quadriennale di Roma in collaboration with Roma Culture, Rome’s Superintendency for Cultural Heritage. Its aim is to explore a number of significant trends in 21st-century Italian art.
Once a month, eleven artists under the age of 35 are presented in the exhibition with a single work. Their research is narrated in a portfolio developed by the Curator-in-residence at La Quadriennale.
The ninth exhibition of Portfolio (13 May – 6 June 2023) is dedicated to Jacopo Rinaldi (Rome1988). His artistic practice draws on archive materials to question collective historical memory and thus critically reinterpret the present. The work iio sono un disgraziato il mio destino è di morir in prigione strangolato (2020) is a reflection on the human assumption of being able to categorise individuals’ physical characteristics in order to define their behaviour and the social threat they represent, a pseudo-scientific approach that was widespread in the 19th century and that contributed to the consolidation of criminology and modern studies on biometrics that are still applied today, for instance through smartphones.
The work consists of reproductions on mirror film of two of the five photographs that the anarchist Gaetano Bresci (1869-1901) was carrying at the time of the attempted assassination of King Umberto I, probably depicting his loved ones. The originals still show clearly Bresci’s fingerprints, which were used in the first comparative study of criminal anthropology. The artist highlights the contrast between the intimate nature of the images and their historical function. The installation is completed by an 1894 edition of Gli anarchici, by Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminal anthropology. To consult his portfolio, read here.
The exhibition venue is the Museo di Roma-Palazzo Brasch i(Piazza di San Pantaleo, 10/Piazza Navona, 2). The admission is free without reservation. Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday 10.00 – 19.00
