In a new exhibition held by Alcantara and Maxxi National Museum of Art in Rome, Space Popular has reimagined theories by Aldo Rossi, intersecting digital worlds with urbanism and layered experience.
Alcantara and Maxxi present Space Popular: ‘Search History’
Having founded a common space in design in 2011, Maxxi National Museum of 21st-Century Art and textile brand Alcantara are now on their sixth edition of the Alcantara-Maxxi Project. Utilising the natural dialogue between art and design, the founders invite design studios to respond to an artist whose work is held in the museum’s collection, culminating in a show at the museum, curated by Domitilla Dardi.
Seating and images, part of 'Search History', Space Popular's show at Maxxi National Museum of Art in Rome, for Alcantara-Maxxi
In previous years, Formafantasma has presented a reimagining of Pier Luigi Nervi’s robust technical approach, and Neri & Hu have confronted architecture by Carlo Scarpa, amplifying voids and combining materials in sculptural exhibitions.
Space Popular’s work across both physical and virtual spaces is at the centre of the project, where the studio has defined an experience of immersive online spaces. Using the theories laid out in Italian architect and designer Aldo Rossi’s 1960s book, The Architecture of the City, as a starting point, the creative team have used layering and the multiplicity of online virtual spaces to inform their contemporary, Rossi-based concept.
'Search History', Space Popular's show at Maxxi National Museum of Art in Rome, for Alcantara-Maxxi
In The Architecture of the City, Rossi presents the objective metropolis as a sequence of spatial experiences that continue to be ‘permanent, universal and a necessary fact’ despite each person experiencing the same space diversely. Rejigging this theory, ‘Search History’ presents Alcantara textiles in a disjointed panorama, which shifts around its centre and alters the viewer's perspective constantly.
The structure moves in unison with a soundscape, composed and produced by Spanish music duo San Jerónimo, running thematically with the immersive nature of virtual worlds, and coming together to ‘reflect on Rossi’s ideas of the building as an entity that absorbs, records and plays back the history of the city onto itself’, comments Space Popular.
'Search History' by Space Popular is on view until 15 January 2023
MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art
Via Guido Reni, 4a
00196 Rome
Italy
A view of the images in 'Search History', Space Popular's show at Maxxi National Museum of Art in Rome, for Alcantara-Maxxi
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