Carlo De Meo's Quarantine Series 'ERRARE due pagine di'

During Italy's COVID-19 lockdown, artist Carlo De Meo, isolated from his studio, created a series of 40 works titled 'ERRARE due pagine di' — one for each day of quarantine. Using tempera on monographic booklets of historical artists, he intervened on iconic images (altarpieces, Last Judgments, Adam and Eve, Morandi, Van Gogh) by adding a silhouette of a man with an open mouth from which words emerge. The artist described the process as a spontaneous, automatic response to his present reality, using found objects like biscuit boxes, gift wrap, and magazine pages before settling on his academic monograph collection. He began by placing adhesive tape masks on figures in a Luini Pietà, then added dates day by day. The title plays on the Italian word 'errare' (to wander/err), emphasizing coincidence and subjective temporality. De Meo, trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone in the late 1980s, has since the mid-1990s developed a practice centered on found objects and performance.