installation
04 April 2023 > 25 February 2024

Nico VascellariFalena

Museum’s lobby – free admittance

A reference to the sun and its radiant rays, shining two and a half metres on the Museum’s concrete wall like the creative and regenerative power of the mother star.

Consisting of over one hundred gold-plated scythes, Falena symbolises fertile nature while reaping death; using the agricultural tool also accommodates an essential social and political dimension that tells of labour and the workers’ struggles of the second half of the 20th century. Finally, the very title of the work alludes to the profound dichotomies that characterise the nocturnal insect constantly in search of light and can be found in Vascellari’s twenty years of research: day and night, light and darkness and, in the extreme, above and below, life and death.

Nico Vascellari is one of the most interesting eclectic experimenters in the Italian art scene. Vascellari’s practice ranges from immersive installations to performative actions to participatory and relational moments in absolute freedom of creation in which art is seen beyond any categorisation.

A reflection on man, nature and the divine, Falena encompasses various themes dear to the artist and, as for all his poetics, is rooted in a cultural environment where legends, myths, and popular rites have always characterised human history.

The work will become part of the MAXXI Collection.