Gabriele Basilico Roma
Palazzo Altemps, Rome, 2024
Curators: Matteo Balduzzi, Giovanna Calvenzi
Surface: 355sm
Museo Fotografia Contemporanea, Director: Gabriella Guerci
Archivio Gabriele Basilico: Giovanna Calvenzi, Gianni Nigro, Beba Gristina, Andrea Elia Zanini
Responsible of Palazzo Altemps: Chiara Giobbe
Palazzo Altemps Coordinator: Giulia Cirenei
Palazzo Altemps Technical Department: Lucio Bove
Setup and Graphics Production: Articolarte
Lighting: SAET, Rome
Graphic Design: Tomo Tomo
Photos: Ettore Maragoni
The exhibition, hosted inside Palazzo Altemps, unfolds through a sequence of themes and episodes, ranging from the introduction—Gabriele Basilico’s deep relationship with Rome—to his early works from the 1980s, from the display of contact sheets related to his research on the capital, to his more recent photographs.
This sequence is set within spaces that—except for the main exhibition hall—are currently arranged to showcase part of the Palazzo Altemps collection. The idea is to establish a dialogue between the permanent artifacts and the new exhibition, a dialogue based on comparison and integration, where photographs and sculptures synchronize within spaces that the exhibition renders temporary yet defined. In these settings, the new elements—the photographs and their supports—are placed with care in order to create alignments, juxtapositions, symmetries, contrasts, and cross-references.
The exhibition design gives tangible form to this sequence of episodes, making use of the characteristics of the available spaces, their rhythm, and the presence and orientation of the artifacts. The primary aim is to create a visual and material continuity within a path that traverses heterogeneous spaces and contents. For this reason, the components of the display are conceived with a simple, recurring vocabulary—even when designed for diametrically opposed functions: a podium or a wall mount.
The constraints—installing the exhibition within a protected historic building—are fully integrated into the project, becoming an organic part of it. Each element is conceived to respect the context while at the same time treated as an independent object, in which the “limitations” dissolve into autonomous forms.
