Sislej Xhafa: Benvenuto
A major retrospective devoted to an ironic, subversive artist who draws inspiration from the complexity and contradictions of reality.
The exhibition’s title is taken from the major installation created by the artist in 2000 within the ambit of the Arte all’Arte project in the Casole d’Elsa hills near Siena. A gigantic script Benvenuto (Welcome), an invitation to openness, to the embracing of others understood as necessary, inevitable progress that over time leads to social and cultural change.
This work, together with many others on show, highlights issues such as the coexistence of the cultures and religions and the redefinition of the concept of migrant in a global world.
The exhibition comprises 30 works, spanning his career from the 1990s through to the present, including a new work the artist has created especially for this show. MAXXI is presenting the full range of his artistic output that draws inspiration from the contradictions of contemporary reality.
The issues the artist tackles are frequently tied up with his own experiences; those of identity, nationality, migrations, legality and the institutions, always confronted with tones ranging from the ironic to the subversive and making recourse to the most diverse techniques.
BENVENUTO! Sislej Xhafa is a visual journey through the complexity of the modern world in which each work encourages the observer to reflect, both in personal and collective terms, on the social, economic and political phenomena of our world.
On the first day of opening of the exhibition, Thursday, June 2 at 6pm, the performance Again and Again will be staged in MAXXI’s Gallery 1 (admittance with a museum entrance ticket). A performance piece by the artist that involves the Orchestra d’archi Roma Sinfonietta and which like other works by Xhafa plays on the deconstruction of traditional values and the overturning of perception.
40 Italian and international masters of photography; 150 images describing Italy in its multiple and at times contradictory guises.
June 2 also sees the opening to the public of the exhibition EXTRAORDINARY VISIONS. L’ITALIA CI GUARDA, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the birth of the Italian Republic to which MAXXI is paying tribute.
