Also in Italy the notion of memorial art is at the centre of debate. In Rome, “Arte in Memoria” has been curated by Adachiara Zevi, two exhibitions and an international conference the first of which opens 16 October (the anniversary of the deportation of Jews from Rome): at the ‘Sinagoga and the Campidoglio di Ostia Antica’ installations by twelve artists have been created on the site of one of the most ancient archaeological witnesses to Judaism of the Diaspora, dating back to the first century.

Chosen to show their work are artists representing different nationalities, generations, styles and directions such as Arnold Dreyblatt, Emilio Fantin, Rudolf Herz, Janis Kounellis, Sol LeWitt, Fabio Mauri, Maurizio Mochetti, Giulio Paolini, Susan Philipsz, Enzo Umbaca, Gal Weinstein, Marisa Merz. They offer, in the words of the curator “a selective and carefully aimed memorial, which does not delegate its transmission to monuments and rituals, but which is declined in the present, with subjects and dramas from contemporary society”.

On 17 October, in the Centrale Montemartini, it is the turn of the photographic exhibition “Sinagoga di Stommeln”. This is made up of work by eleven artists who since 1991 have been showing at the synagogue in Stommeln, the only one to survive the Nazis in the province of Cologne - Carl Andre, Georg Baselitz, Eduardo Chillida, Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Penone, Richard Serra, Rebecca Horn, Erich Reusch, Roman Signer, Maria Nordman, Mischa Kuball. The intention is to create an exchange between the Synagogue of Ostia – the first of the exile – with that in Stommeln.

On the same day and in the same place, an international conference will take place in which the theme of remembrance will be looked at from a historical, anthropololical, architectural and psychoanalytical point of view. Taking part will be scholars at of an international level such as Marc Sheps, James Fentress, Alessandro Portelli, Clotilde Pontecorvo, David Meghnagi, Paola di Cori, Fiorella Bassan and the artists present in Ostia and Stommeln.

until 30.11.2002
Arte in memoria
Sinagoga e il Campidoglio di Ostia Antica
Viale dei Romagnoli 717, Ostia Antica, Roma

Centrale Montemartini
Via Ostiense 106, Roma
T +39-06-5898061/5835863