Tourism in Rome: How to Find the 'Sublime' Even in Clichés

(by Agnese Ferrara) Piazza Venezia, the Quirinale, the Colosseum in the moonlight, the maritime pines (before and after the mutilations). Everything has already been seen in Rome, a city rich in clichés that tourists visit, maps in hand, as a pilgrimage but with the dream of finding something unseen from others, those secret places that they like so much. But there is something unseen in the Eternal City? Or are they his commonplaces imprinted in memories, photographs and selfie the true uniqueness? "It is also in the clichés, contrary to what one might think, that you can find the wonder of Rome, - replies Saverio Verini, curator of the current exhibition at the Macro museum in Rome 'Sublime cliché. Festival of academies and institutes of culture foreigners in Rome'. A large population of fellows, researchers and artists foreigners residing in academies and cultural institutes citizens immortalize the views of the Capital every year, highlighting something that is missing even in postcard locations, rereading its history and human relationships, including the difficult 'Roman' lifestyle that opens up before him (city very complicated to live in). "Rome has been a source of inspiration for artists from all over the world, - specifies Verini, - the work of the scholarship holders, here since the past centuries, is a unique resource. Rome is a city where everything has already happened, so rich in lively stratifications of stereotypes, from rhetoric of the eternal city up to the degradation that runs through it. In such context fragments are revealed, an extraordinary 'interior' and even wild. Thus the city offers a mine of metaphors visuals, with which he manifests his cumbersome grace and indecipherable, tragic and poetic, between wonder and decadence. The suggestion is to give up the idea of ​​places not yet known. How many artists have portrayed her, sung her, filmed her, praised, cursed forever? The secret is not to demonize the its clichés but have eyes to find the surprises they conceal every time". "Let's imagine a guide to Rome for foreign visitors and that warns his reader 'don't trust stereotypes', - explains Michele di Monte, art historian and curator at Palazzo Barberini, author of the text 'Impressive Rome' included in the interesting catalogue of the exhibition 'Sublime Cliché', published by Drago. - It would be a golden maxim for every traveler armed with good will. Yet, even the recommendation reveals its rhetoric because we ourselves have 'baggage', filters and personal clichés". Di Monte suggests: "We go to Rome to see the show of the eternal city, desperately searching for something surprising, unprecedented. The answer is to try to get inside the stereotype to discover a new beauty, revealed in ruins, in the glimpses. In the works and fragments there is a collection of legends, stories, quotes, other works. To review also means to reconceive. Let's take the image of the Colosseum in the moonlight and which to many will seem unbearably oleographic, postcard-like, but how many of them? are fascinated? Let's think of the historian Gregorovius from 1800 who had 'no words to express the storm of emotions' in seeing the scene. We want to judge such feelings less authentic?". This is how foreign fellows contributed to the works on display at the Macro. From the enormous base of a maritime pine, roots included, to the monuments captured in unique moments (such as horses and elephants roaming around Piazza Venezia or in the gardens of Villa Medici). Also reclining female sculptures on cleaning trolleys (in hotels, stations etc.), urban scenarios with disused poles at the centre that regain dignity, layered walls that tell us about the time or graffiti found on the walls of the center of Rome in recent years, work of unknown (Vincenzo, 'Enzo' Romano) and facts with a thick-tipped marker and which, together, become a frieze that envelops the exhibition space. The Festival of Academies and Cultural Institutes Foreigners in Rome - Sublime cliché, runs until August 24th at the Macro.