I made it back to Rome just in time for the last night of Fondazione Alda Fendi’s Inaccessible, an annual performance art event held the last week of Lent at the Antico Mercato del Pesce degli Ebrei, in the Foro Boario. Each year curator Raffaele Curi and Fendi bombard us with imagery, lighting, sound and performance with the intention of jostling us out of our complacency. For me, this year’s performance was more uplifting than anything else. I don’t know if it was a my preconceived mindset – an evening on my own, what could be better?– or the musical score and visual imagery which segued from intense to righteous to celebratory.
Inaccessible/Inaccessible, according to Fendi, is everything and nothing which fits in perfectly with performance art and Fendi Esperimenti- often hard to digest and sometimes hard to find. But then again, Fendi’s experiments are open to anyone. This year, the seven- night Inaccessibile included live nude models (a leit motif in the Experiments), an image of a Louise Bourgeois spider sculpture, Christ icon, Masonic triangles, an Athenian warrior, a dwarf, a swiss guard and a recitation of Medea by Francesca Benedetti. Each performance and image rolled seamlessly into the next, helped by the three large screens where projects coursed counter clockwise.
I walked out smiling. Inaccessible is really everything and nothing, just like art, and including the large cube by architect Jean Nouvel that was placed in the antico mercato’s entrance and was vaguely reminiscent of a Disney character. As I turned the corner, I breathed in Fendi’s latest project, a rehash of a 5-story palazzo by Nouvel for Fendi’s spazio museale. And it dawned on me, this is the celebration. By early summer 2014, Fendi will (hopefully) have added a new dimension to Rome’s artistic landscape with its museum/artists’ studios/concept space. I can’t wait.
