At the Baths of Caracalla, photography among the Roman remains with the exhibition ‘Narcissus’

Open to visitors from 15 May to 3 November 2024

‘Narcissus. Mirror photography is the title of the exhibition that can be visited at the Baths of Caracalla from 15 May to 3 November 2024. The exhibition project is promoted by the Special Superintendence of Rome, directed by Daniela Porro, and organized by Electa with the care of Nunzio Giustozzi. These are 78 iconic author shots divided into three sections and set up in two covered areas and in the monument’s natatio. “The photographic exhibitions and, more generally, on the art of our times at the Baths of Caracalla acquire a very particular charm and suggestion – reflects Daniela Porro – thanks to the dialectic with the majestic Roman remains that give the contemporary a dimension of eternity. Just as the theme of the double, of the mirror, of mirroring and mirroring, eternalized by Narcissus, is timeless, as demonstrated by the infinite versions of the myth. Here we rediscover it through the shots of the great photographers of the twentieth century. with images with a strong symbolic value and open to interpretations, hopefully the most diverse, of visitors”.

THE “BEAUTIFUL ADORABLE FACE”

The exhibition is part of the program of initiatives that celebrate the return of water to the Antoninian Baths under the sign of Narcissus, the young man who, as Ovid’s poem admirably narrates, falls in love with her “beautiful adorable face” ( Umberto Saba) reflected in a source. The themes of the mirror and reflection are recurring in the powerfully suggestive work of 35 of the most important international photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries. A section of the itinerary will be specifically dedicated to contemporary variations on the myth, in which selected works will dialogue with classic and modern literary quotations, in an ideal prelude to the theme of a series of meetings scheduled for next September, with the organization and curatorship by Electa, entitled Noi, daffodils in a body of water. In these events the decisive role of image in our society will be explored in depth. “A multifaceted exhibition, whose central theme arises from the broader project of rebirth of the Baths of Caracalla – states Mirella Serlorenzi, director of the monument – which began with the creation of the body of water, which generates many connections and stimuli: the myth, doubling, introspection, beauty, deformation, self-representation, the mask, the stage of life. Themes that have always pervaded human nature, renewing themselves in every era and central to the Narciso La exhibition mirror photography, designed to also capture the attention and interest of young people. In its archaeological significance, the monument remains the protagonist of these enhancement interventions to involve the visitor through a total cultural experience”.

THE DOUBLE

The theme of the double is inscribed in the profound mechanisms of literature and the arts which have always been fascinated by it for its anthropological and psychological implications: from antiquity to the baroque, from romanticism to symbolism, up to theatre, cinema, dance, fashionable in the twentieth century. To photographers the mirror/reflection, no less than the shadow, has traditionally offered an aesthetic vehicle for accelerating charm and beauty, sometimes an expedient of deformation, or an amplifier of reality in composing shots and making cuts, to reach new perspectives of vision, a shift in points of view and focus to draw attention towards a mysterious threshold or towards elsewhere. “The visitor will be able to move between portraits of celebrities, enigmatic interiors and tranches de vie captured over time at different latitudes – states Nunzio Giustozzi, curator of the exhibition – dual illusions combined by harmony or contrast in a story aimed, beyond the occasion, at history of every single image, subjects and motifs that have continued to inspire authors even very distant chronologically and in their trajectories or poetics”. Finally, a section of the exhibition will address the topos of the Self-Portrait in the Mirror, allowing for a close, eye-to-eye comparison with the photographers themselves, whose likenesses have become as famous as their memorable shots. p>