ROME.- RETROFUTURE is the column of Museum for Preventive Imagination devoted to rethinking the museum’s collection in the perspective of a pathway in progress aimed at the newer generations, where different timeframes overlap to investigate the role of a public collection of contemporary art in the 21st century.

The backdrop of the evolution of this space is provided by the large wallpapers reproducing photographic portraits of the MACRO, shot by Giovanna Silva in the storerooms of the museum. The project, titled Catabasi, brings to light the works stored in the off-limits spaces where they are conserved, granting them a new-found visibility and triggering reflections on the status of the artwork in an era in which it is increasingly mediated by images. The survey has also activated the idea of a meta collection, organized to gather a new nucleus of works by young Italian artists, until the end of 2022, in a stratification of generations and languages. Inside RETROFUTURE works and stories will accumulate in a catalogue without a fil rouge, becoming a collective dimension that defines a common landscape.

New works will be introduced into the space at different times throughout the coming months and years. RETROFUTURE opens with the simultaneous presence of eleven artists: Carola Bonfili (1981), Costanza Candeloro (1990), Ludovica Carbotta (1982), Gianluca Concialdi (1981), Giulia Crispiani (1986), Giorgio Di Noto (1990), Beatrice Marchi (1986), Diego Marcon (1985), SAGG NAPOLI (1991), Francesco Pedraglio (1981), Davide Stucchi (1988).

Carola Bonfili presents Polia (2019), a video inspired by the ambiguous, polymorphic nature of the woodcut illustrations of the dream of Poliphilus, contained in the allegorical novel Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499).

U (2020) by Costanza Candeloro, inspired by the homonymous Netflix’s series, is a glass display case with which the artist points to processes of conservation connected with an obsessive desire for possession.

A bas relief by Ludovica Carbotta, Untitled (Stine) (2020), brings to mind the story of a forgotten past, that of the Telamons, who have lost any memory of their lives.

Giulia Crispiani with Il futuro era ieri (2020) outlines the draft of a future publication which explores where museums and their works would end up if Rome were to be dissolved by end-of-season monsoons.

Gianluca Concialdi brings the installation Santissima Pizzeria (2020), a mobile kitchen lab that calls for the active participation of the observer, calling into question the more contemplative aspects of art.

Giorgio Di Noto explores the distance between ethics and aesthetics with two lightboxes from the series The Offing (2020): their images, which initially seem pleasant and familiar, turn out to have been made by ISIS terrorists.

The video by Beatrice Marchi, Story of a Girl Band (2018), narrates a group of characters—recurring figures in the artist’s practice—who meet in passing on the moving walkways of an airport, and are transformed into a girl band in the spotlight of a red carpet.

Diego Marcon presents Oh mio cagnetto, (2020): a collection of 81 little poems configured as an artist’s book, conceived for wide circulation and published by LENZ Press.

Based on the artist’s current research on the Taranta, AM I INTUITIVE OR AM I PARANOID (2020) is a site-specific graffiti work made by SAGG NAPOLI. Maziar Firouzi, +39 02 8295 4344 (2020-2022) is a group of seven bronze models made by Francesco Pedraglio, which interact with each other and with the space, in keeping with a script provided by the artist.

Hanging from two light bulbs on the ceiling, the two imperceptible interventions by Davide Stucchi, entitled Mobile (Rome) (2020), are composed of iron coat hangers bent by the artist. They hide amongst the various presences in the room, taking on different poses, moved by the air, shifted by the passage of others in the space.