Eight Artists Confront Goethe in Rome Exhibition

The Museo Casa di Goethe in Rome hosts 'VIAGGIO IN ITALIA XXI – Lo sguardo sull'altro', a group exhibition curated by Ludovico Pratesi. Eight artists of diverse origins and generations reflect on the theme of travel, echoing Goethe's own Grand Tour experience during his two-year stay in Rome (1786-88). The show includes Francesco Arena's bronze blocks inscribed with poetic landscape moments, Esra Ersen's photographs giving voice to African migrant street sweepers, and Alessandro Piangiamore's negatives on Japanese paper adorned with bird feathers—the same quills Goethe used for writing, evoking Mediterranean migration trajectories. Christian Jankowski's irreverent video, set in the Complesso Monumentale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, contrasts with Guido Casaretto's conceptual, introspective piece referencing Goethe's impressions of the Roman Carnival. Johanna Diehl focuses on travel as memory and reconfiguration, capturing rationalist architecture in deserted contemplation. Silvia Giambrone's bitter assemblage and Benedikt Hipp's oil-on-panel work explore inner journeys and societal chains. The exhibition is presented under new director Gregor H. Lersch, who emphasizes the question of travel's meaning in the present.