Cerith Wyn Evans's Pompeii Threnody at Boscoreale Antiquarium

The Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans (born 1958) presents Pompeii Threnody, the first site-specific exhibition of the Pompeii Commitment. Materie archeologiche program, curated by Andrea Viliani with Stella Bottai, Laura Mariano, and Caterina Avataneo, under the general supervision of Pompeii Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel. The show unfolds in the Antiquarium of Boscoreale, a brutalist concrete building that once housed Roman artifacts. Twelve works are linked by a luminous echo, with the efebo lampadoforo (a bronze youth holding a lamp) as sentinel. The leitmotif is light, evoking aletheia (unveiling truth). The first series, The Ancient Cypress Trees of the Sarno Plain, features photoengravings of fossilized trees preserved anaerobically. Another installation, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, uses neon at 6500 kelvin to display a palindrome translating to 'we go in circles in the night and are consumed by fire,' referencing a film by Guy Debord. The neon relates to a ceremonial chariot found at Civita Giuliana, whose wheels echo the circular form. The final section includes two 20th-century lamps by Hans Kögl from Evans's private collection, placed in the museum's patio, evoking a domestic domus. Evans describes Pompeii as 'a medium, a process, a lens to read life and history.' The exhibition concept aligns with Alexander Dorner's idea of the museum as a Kraftwerk (power plant) in constant motion.