Artists: Mathis Altmann, Dora Budor, Tomaso De Luca, Anna Franceschini, Lenard Giller, Caspar Heinemann, Mélanie Matranga, Brandon Ndife, Giangiacomo Rossetti, Gregor Schneider, Max Hooper Schneider, Augustas Serapinas, Ser Serpas, Giovanna Silva, Analisa Teachworth, Nico Vascellari, Rachel Whiteread, Marina Xenofontos
Exhibition title: The Uncanny House
Curated by: Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin
Venue: Casa di Goethe Museum, Rome, Italy
Date: March 28 – September 1, 2024
Photography: Courtesy the artists. All Photos: Roberto Apa © Casa di Goethe, Rome
Note: Exhibition guide is available here
Through the work of eighteen international artists, The Uncanny House exhibition aims to explore new artistic perspective related to the uncanny referred to the dome-stic environment. The “uncanny” intended as a leitmotif that nourished literary fantasy, fairy tales, horror stories, and artistic creation alike since the early 19th century takes shape within the house in Via del Corso in Rome, where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lived between 1786 and 1788. The exhibition aims to open up a dialog with the house itself, where Goethe lived over two centuries ago. Certainly, no other writer is as inextricably associated with houses as sites of literary production and “lieux de mémoire” than Goethe: the houses in Frankfurt, Weimar and, of course, in Rome, are environments that, because of their authenticity and closeness to the historical per-son, create a feeling that visitors repeatedly describe as uncanny. Additionally, many passages in Goethe’s works, for example in Faust, also show Goethe’s interest in the dark side of human existence. After the physical traces of his presence have disappeared, now interstices, chimeras and forgotten voices rise to the surface.
