Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella on Their Latest Show Hybris and Political Views

Italian artist duo Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella discuss their latest performance Hybris (2022), a tour de force centered on a door that serves as both a concrete object and a metaphor for power. The show, staged at Teatro Carignano in Turin from June 4 to 9, 2024, uses minimalism and wordplay to critique authority. In an interview, Rezza declares he has not voted in 22-23 years and calls for delegitimizing politicians through mass abstention. Mastrella describes the duo as "popular" rather than underground, noting they receive no state funding. They criticize Italy's cultural system as a "cultural colony of the Americans" and denounce a law they say paralyzes theater tours. Rezza also promotes his novel Il fattaccio, which he claims was unfairly excluded from the Strega Prize due to political bias. The interview touches on their views on poverty, art's inability to save lives, and the difficulty of avant-garde work being exported from Italy.