Blackout: Allora & Calzadilla
Curated by Hou Hanru and Anne Palopoli
MAXXI Museum nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
February 16–May 30, 2018
Opening 15 February, 6:30pm
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla are producing the project Blackout at MAXXI, a body of recent works focussing on the issue of energy. Working in the Gallery 5 space, the duo are bringing the exhibition layout and the works themselves into close contact, creating almost a “performative” setting. Through the story of a paradoxical situation, that of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States, the artists analyze diverse critical issues and contradictions associated with energy in regard to its relationship with power, research, environmentalism, and the global political situation, confirming their vocation for reflection on events and circumstances bound up with current sociopolitical affairs. Thanks to a critical and visionary approach, the works of Allora and Calzadilla reinterpret the present, offering differing points of view and proposing a new vision of reality.