Valentina Vetturi's 'La Mossa di Ettore' Honors Ettore Majorana at MACRO

Valentina Vetturi's work 'La Mossa di Ettore' is on view at MACRO in Rome until March 1, as part of the 'Esercizi di Rivoluzione' cycle curated by MAXXI and Nomas Foundation. The piece—comprising a chessboard table, a gold-leaf engraving, and a video of a performance—pays homage to physicist Ettore Majorana, who vanished in 1938. The work coincides with the Rome prosecutor's office closing the case after 77 years, concluding Majorana likely fled to Venezuela under the alias Bini, based on photographic aging and witness testimony. On October 5, 2014, chess masters Lexy Ortega and Massimiliano Lucaroni played a match using 'La Mossa di Ettore,' a supplementary move that forces the player to make a disadvantageous action, symbolizing disappearance and symbolic death. Majorana, born in Catania in 1906, was a student and collaborator of Enrico Fermi at the University of Rome's physics faculty, and his mysterious disappearance inspired works by Gianni Amelio and Leonardo Sciascia.