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 seventh exhibition of Portfolio (17 March – 09 April 2023) is dedicated to Irene Fenara (Bologna 1990).
The work of Irene Fenara is an investigation into the functioning of mechanical gazes, understood as emanations of new subjectivities. The artist is interested in the “peculiarity” of individual devices, that is, in how these are capable of constructing their own vision of the world, something that contradicts the alleged impersonality that tends to define them solely as productive and controlling organisms. An example of this is the vast body of work dedicated to surveillance cameras, whose ordinary purpose the artist subverts, focusing on dysfunctionality and error. In this perspective, images no longer act as a vehicle of information, but rather as means of poetic speculation. To consult her portfolio, read here .
In the series Supervision (2018 – ongoing), the artist extrapolates stills from surveillance camera footage with the aim of highlighting the unpredictable and subjective quality of all possible interpretations. The selected images show views that are sometimes unrecognisable, abstract, altered by manufacturing defects or by external factors that distort the primary function of control. The exhibited work, created in 2021, presents views that are covered by the uncontrolled growth of tree foliage, the colours altered by what seems to be the malfunctioning of the machine. Surveillance seems therefore to be neutralised by the unknown, here represented by nature, which diverts and interferes with the device and brings about an unexpected experience of poetic openness.
The exhibition venue is the Museo di Roma-Palazzo Braschi (Piazza di San Pantaleo, 10/Piazza Navona, 2). The admission is free without reservation. Opening hours: from Tuesday to Sunday 10.00 – 19.00
