ROME.- In First Person Plural is an exhibition conceived as a film set, in which the artworks act as characters capable of activating different stories within the same scenario. A space composed of a complex ensemble of elements—artworks, music, artefacts, masks, reflective surfaces, performers—transporting the viewer into an alternate dimension through their association.

In First Person Plural is the first group show to be presented in the SOLO/MULTI section of MACRO’s programme and aims to explore another facet of the exhibition as medium with an experimental approach. The exhibition is designed to be a synesthetic and disorientating experience, which takes form through the works of the artists from diverse generations and backgrounds, evading thematic and temporal classifications but destabilizing the boundaries and definitions of the human, non-human and post-human. It is a space in which our notions of reality and fiction are teased, flipped over, and twisted. A deposit of gestures, signs and emotions belonging to a recent past and marked by a certain abstraction yet resonating conceptually and physically in the present.

In addition to the artworks, throughout the course of the exhibition a series of characters and objects, like apparitions, some static whilst others in motion, will act freely within the space. Among these are a Michael Jackson impersonator, a series of street painters and performers invited to wear masks. A compost of seemingly familiar and harmless elements, yet aimed at suggesting a deeply perturbing experience of reality, as if to prompt a reflection on the enigmatic cognitive and emotional conditions characteristic of our time.

In First Person Plural

With Gina Beavers, Alexandra Bircken, Corrado Cagli, Judy Chicago, Enzo Cucchi, Jimmy DeSana, Eliza Douglas, Wayland Flowers, Massimo Grimaldi, Duane Hanson, Mark Leckey, Nancy Lupo, Tala Madani, John Miller, Hudson Mohawke, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Ulrike Ottinger, Lucia Pica, Francisco Sierra, Erik Thys, Gianfilippo Usellini and other apparitions opened on 27 April 2023 and will continue through 24 September 2023.

The exhibition is promoted by Roma Culture and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo with the support of Byredo.

A special thanks to American Academy in Rome.