iMACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of RomeSalario-Nomentano
Gaia De Megni: Maria's Dream
A 16mm video installation exploring the deconstruction of stardom in Italian cinema through the artist's personal search for Monica Vitti's burial site, weaving family memory and film history into an intimate mother-daughter dialogue.
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"Is that the Lollo? No, it's not Lollobrigida. See? They're all the same." The line comes from a private conversation Gaia De Megni recorded with her mother over a magazine. Their voices run over 16mm footage of the Verano, Rome's monumental cemetery, where De Megni went looking for Monica Vitti's grave without searching for it online.
It is a single film in MACRO's Video Room, the ArteVisione 2024 winner, shown in a museum for the first time. De Megni and cinematographer Marcello Orlando shot it on one hot summer day with no scouting, and you follow the camera down the cemetery's avenues through hard shadows and backlight. Its starting point is Scandalo segreto (1990), the last film Vitti directed, about a camera that spies on its heroine and takes over her identity.
Revenews' Matteo Raffaelli wrote that De Megni tells Vitti's retreat into private life "without violating its mystery". It is one room, covered by the €6 MACRO ticket (€4 for ages 7 to 26), and closes 8 November.
Look for
The mother-daughter soundtrack
Listen for the recorded exchange over a magazine, where mother and daughter call Vitti the anti-diva and decide the other stars all look the same.
The Verano on 16mm
Look for the silent sequences among headstones and blades of grass, shot in hard shadow and backlight on a single summer day.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want objects on walls: this is a single 16mm film in one video room.
Also at MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome
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Image credits
9
- Gaia De Megni: Maria's DreamCourtesy of MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome
- Titian. Dialogues between the Sacred and the ProfaneCourtesy of Galleria Borghese
- Hank Willis Thomas & Man Ray: Tomorrow I shall contradict myselfPhoto: Giorgio Benni
- AEGYPTUS. Dal Nilo al Mediterraneo. Oasi e deserto in epoca romanaCourtesy of National Roman Museum - Palazzo Massimo
- MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of RomeAlbarubescens, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Galleria BorgheseAlessio Damato, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Galleria Continua Romarandreu, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
- National Roman Museum - Palazzo MassimoRicardalovesmonuments, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Palazzo Barberini - Gallerie Nazionali di Arte AnticaPubblicUsername / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0