Adrian Tranquilli's 'It's Happening Again' at Palazzo Braschi

Adrian Tranquilli's solo exhibition 'It's Happening Again' opens at Museo di Roma Palazzo Braschi, curated by Studio Stefania Miscetti, running until May 24, 2026. The show presents new works including the monolith 'Endsong' (2025), a black parallelepiped covered in hundreds of Joker faces referencing Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', and the pop-up book 'My Little White Book' (2026). Tranquilli, born in Melbourne in 1966 and raised in Rome, uses playing cards and paper to create monumental yet fragile sculptures that critique power systems. The exhibition explores themes of heroes and antiheroes, drawing on the Joker as an emblem of reversed evil inspired by Michel Foucault's 'Madness and Civilization'. Works like 'In Excelsis 6' (2024) juxtapose Batman with Christological iconography to honor human mortality. The artist's practice is informed by anthropologist Ida Magli and sociologist Sergio Brancato, and continues his photographic series 'Know Yourself' (2002) which analyzed cultural codes across New York, Rome, and Armenia.