What is good is always being destroyed. There is no wall between inside and out, but rather a membrane: permeable, fluctuating, vulnerable. Sometimes the light, sometimes a glance, a condemnation, an invitation makes it through. There are thresholds at which we hesitate. Who is inside? Who decides who may enter? Spatial configurations enable encounters: doors that only open in one direction; corridors that lead to dead-ends; communal stairwells; central train stations. In these spaces—and in the everyday, recurring, habitual encounters that take place within them—relationships materialise.
The camera, too, moves through and produces space, turning towards, dividing, excluding, and focusing. Again, out of spatial conditions—now those of seeing and being seen, or remaining invisible—relations emerge. The camera doesn’t always wield power here. It can empower, evaluate, preserve or protect what it sees; but first and foremost, it exposes, bringing its subject to light. Through the lens, the gaze is in search of something. It both seeks and produces luoghi sensibili—sensitive places. It experiences shame. Looking creates vulnerability, documentation shows what is temporary, and movement lends a poor image a frame. There is something to be seen in dazzling light, in deliberate shadows, in the bleed. What was on the periphery shifts to the centre. “Where exactly shall we meet?” It is simply a question of perspective, of position, of the triangulation of gazes, of infrastructure.
A Good Reputation is Rosa Aiello’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany and comprises her most comprehensive new body of work to date. Alongside massive architectural interventions, Aiello will present new collaborative and documentary film and photographic works made with Pitt Wenninger, Yutong Su and others. Paintings by Laura Langer will also feature, as well as a performance developed by Dylan Aiello in response to the exhibition.
The exhibition is part of the year-long research, exhibition and discourse programme The Company We Keep Makes the World We Live In under the new artistic direction of Theresa Roessler. It focuses on the political and resilient potential of friendship, taking this both as a prerequisite for productive collaboration and as a model for constructive political relations.
Publication
To accompany the exhibition, Aiello will release a new publication in January 2026 with DISTANZ, Berlin, as part of the Kontext series, including an essay by Yaniya Lee and contributions from Helin Çelik, Beatrice Gibson and Ivana Mladenović.
Biography
Rosa Aiello (b. 1987 in Hamilton, CA, living and working in Berlin, DE) studied at Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M., DE, 2014–18; Oxford University, GB, 2010–11 and McGill University, Montréal, CA, 2005–10, and participated in Berlinale Talents, Berlin, DE, 2024. Her films were shown at Fridericianum, Kassel, DE, 2023; Kunsthalle Zürich, CH, 2019; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt a.M., DE, 2019; Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, GB, 2017; High Line Art, New York City, US, 2015, among others.
Rosa Aiello’s solo and duo exhibitions include, among others: LOVE TEST: P.O.V., together with Dylan Aiello, Mint, Stockholm, SE, 2024; The All Attractive, Drei, Cologne, DE, 2023; Traffic, Kevin Space, Vienna, AT, 2022; Caryatid Encounters, Arcadia Missa, London, GB, 2021; Seduction, Lodos, Mexico City, MX, 2019; Joins, together with Patricia L. Boyd, Cell Project Space, London, GB, 2019. Rosa Aiello has received numerous awards and grants, including from the Hessische Kulturstiftung (2024).
