State of Matter is a performance for six actors and dancers, designed specifically for the opening of the show ‘Back to Nature’, curated by Costantino D’Orazio, in Villa Borghese, Rome. The performance has been inspired by Drops, a group of sculptures created by the artist Andreco, which has been set up at the Prospettiva del Teatro, a large semi-circular courtyard in the Parco dei Daini in the Villa.
“I decided to set up the sculptures on the ground in the courtyard, while the fourteen pedestals are meant for the performers and the fruit trees. The performance is a complex reflection that is inspired by the space in which it takes place. It is a reflection on solids and voids, materials, on the changes to the states of the matter, transformations, on the deconstruction of the past, present and future conditions for dominion.”
The performers get on the pedestals and take up the empty space that has been left by the statues. They turn into new sculptures in transformation, meant to overturn the whole idea of a sculpture and of a pedestal. The fruit trees turn into an artwork, in accordance with “Nature as Art”, one of the key practices of my poetics. There is a strong resemblance between this practice and the one introduced by the House of Borghese in their secret gardens, where the plants in the garden were shown to the visitors alongside with the paintings inside the villa. The plants too were considered artworks from their collection.
Villa Borghese has been designed with great attention to the water, towards the surface flows of the rainfall and the way in which it would channel towards the Tiber. Water is central for this work, which is meant to be a tribute to its importance for the city and for the life of the plants and the villa.
They run together, they conspire, they breathe together and head towards the wall behind the sculptures. That’s when they begin to interact with the space. The audience’s point of view is two-dimensional. For the viewer, the performers are shapes in space that interact with the partition of the vertical plane that the elements of the facade constitute. A facade with a central niche that reinstates a triangle shape elongated at the ends, similar to that of the sculptural group Drops. The group of sculptures, Drops, recalls the process of the fall of a drop of water and the alteration of the shape during that process.
Andrea Conte aka Andreco is an Italian artist and scientist with a doctoral degree in environmental engineering and a postdoctoral degree in green technology and sustainability.
He works in wide range of media including public installations, drawings, paintings, videos and murals. In his artistic practice Roma-born artist explores the relation and connection between mankind and nature as well as the larger context of the social, ecological, and built environments.
Scroll out below for more images of “State of Matter”.
STATE OF MATTER (Change of State of Matter)
Andreco
Performance Duration: 30’
Directed by: Andreco
Performers: Elena Bastogi; Brianda Maxciel Carreras Santana; Cosimo Desii; Flavia Gramaccioni; Bianca Ranieri; Marta Vitalini
Music: Mai Mai Mai
Photo credit:
Andreco, State of matter at Back to Nature, Villa Borghese, Rome (2020). Courtesy the artist. Photos Futura Tittaferrante and Giorgio Coen Cagli, Studio Andreco.
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