two world wars, death and disfiguration, the exterm<strong>in</strong>ation of the concentration camps, the Holocaust, madness, terrorism. The canvases crowded with desperate bodies are back, push<strong>in</strong>g up aga<strong>in</strong>st each other, either <strong>in</strong> death or try<strong>in</strong>g to avoid it. The pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g by Gaetano Previati, Gli orrori della guerra: l’esodo (1917) shows civilians flee<strong>in</strong>g death <strong>in</strong> a scene that is all too familiar today, whether of Afghanis push<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> desperation to climb on to get-away planes at Kabul airport or of cold, starv<strong>in</strong>g refugees on the Belarus border forced up aga<strong>in</strong>st the barbed wire across the Polish frontier. One pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g stands out among the others, La Matta by Giacomo Balla (1905) from the National Gallery <strong>in</strong> <strong>Rome</strong>. The woman illustrates another form of hell, of the <strong>in</strong>ability to control one's body, of lonel<strong>in</strong>ess and isolation. The lone woman stands at an open door, alone but not alone, as she desperately attempts to control her movements and to communicate with someone <strong>in</strong>side the room. From one agony to another, to that of disfigured faces, plaster casts of faces disfigured by the wounds of war, the liv<strong>in</strong>g dead. Here is the double tragedy not just of the physical pa<strong>in</strong> of the disfigured faces but also of the annihilation of their previous identity. Mov<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to the next room the orig<strong>in</strong>al typescript of Primo Levi's If this is a Man, the testimony to his time <strong>in</strong> Auschwitz, seems shock<strong>in</strong>gly down to earth. Here are pages familiar to anyone who grew up with typewriters; the cross<strong>in</strong>gs out, the additions, the re-writ<strong>in</strong>gs, the pa<strong>in</strong>stak<strong>in</strong>g afterthoughts before a work is f<strong>in</strong>ally sent to the publisher. The onlooker cannot help feel<strong>in</strong>g guilty to be look<strong>in</strong>g so dispassionately at this sanitised version of the Holocaust, of what is left of that desperate suffer<strong>in</strong>g and subsequent pa<strong>in</strong>. The Tw<strong>in</strong> Towers <strong>in</strong> Flames (2003) by British sculptor Raymond Mason doesn't manage to convey the shock of that out-of-the-blue event but it takes the exhibition right up to date and conveys once aga<strong>in</strong> the crowd<strong>in</strong>g, the lack of space, of bodies push<strong>in</strong>g up aga<strong>in</strong>st each other <strong>in</strong> terror and horror. Then f<strong>in</strong>ally, <strong>in</strong> the last section, we are out to the stars, almost as though we were clamber<strong>in</strong>g out of that hell-hole ourselves <strong>in</strong> those wonderful last l<strong>in</strong>es of Dante's L'<strong>in</strong>ferno. La Matta by Giacomo Balla (1905). E senza cura aver d'alcun riposo salimmo su, el primo e io secondo, tanto ch'i' vidi delle cose belle che porta 'l ciel, per un pertugio tondo -- e qu<strong>in</strong>di uscimmo a riveder le stelle. "And with no rest from the fatigue of it, We clambered up, he first, till f<strong>in</strong>ally I saw the heavenly spheres Through a round hole, the aperture whence we Emerged to look once more upon the stars". Two works by Anselm Keifer end the exhibition but we aren't quite out of hell yet. There is someth<strong>in</strong>g challeng<strong>in</strong>g about Stelle Cadente (1995). Here is a man on his back under the stars, motionless with his eyes shut, as though there were someth<strong>in</strong>g troubl<strong>in</strong>g and challeng<strong>in</strong>g him as he lies <strong>in</strong> a deathlike position. Is it wonder or fear? as he lies <strong>in</strong> a death-like position. Is it wonder or fear? It is only as we walk down the magnificent f<strong>in</strong>al staircase of Le Scuderie, with its view over the roof tops of <strong>Rome</strong>, off to the dome of St Peter's <strong>in</strong> the distance, that we are f<strong>in</strong>ally able to leave those images of hell beh<strong>in</strong>d. 8 | December <strong>2021</strong> • <strong>Wanted</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Rome</strong>
<strong>Wanted</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>Rome</strong> • December <strong>2021</strong> | 9