Within the Echos project, a pas de deux between visual art and theatre, the two artists, Alfredo Jaar and Romeo Castellucci, one for each of the two languages, find themselves answering the same questions, as if in front of an imaginary mirror. The structure of the double, of the mirror in fact, reflects and ideally crosses the different looks, approaches and results that find - not surprisingly - surprising commonalities. Alfredo Jaar and Romeo Castellucci, leading figures in contemporary creation, are the protagonists of the first volume.
(On the occasion of the Festival delle Colline Torinesi in world premiere currently available on the hopefulmonster website and in the bookshop of the Fondazione Merz in Turin.)

Romeo Castellucci, director, creator of sets, lighting and costumes, is among the most significant authors of contemporary theatre. A graduate in painting and set design from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, in 1981 he co-founded the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. In 2005 he was director of the theatre section of the Venice Biennale and in 2008 he was associate artist of the 62nd edition of the Festival d'Avignon. Winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2013, the following year he was awarded an honorary degree in music and theatre by the University of Bologna. Among his most recent creations: the plays The Third Reich (2020), Bros (2021), the direction of the operas Pavane für Prometheus IX (2021) and Bluebeard's Castle (2022), the public action Milan (2021) and the installation Tomorrow (2022).

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean artist, architect and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. He studied architecture during the dictatorial regime in Chile and moved to New York in 1982. His work focuses on socio-political issues, the semiotics of images, themes of utopia and failure. He has participated in the Venice Art Biennale (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), the São Paulo Biennale (1987, 1989, 2010, 2021) and Documenta (1987, 2002). He received the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018 and the Hasselblad Award in 2020. His works have been exhibited worldwide.

Everything that is recounted in these escapes is seen and lost sight of through the mists of history, it is a flap of burning existential truth caught up in the never-to-be-specified web of collective events: the agony of Italy's colonial adventure through the warped lens of a ‘family history’; the trial of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's director, reconstructed in the form of an audition for a play; the rambling confession of the first dissociated terrorist of the German revolutionary left in the 1970s; Russian imperialism repeated in farce in the exploits of an actor called to replace Vladimir Putin on official occasions; the May of ‘68 concentrated and dissolved in the claustrophobic “chamber drama” of a Parisian police station.
In a continuous confusion between background and figure, the individual continues to be, as Georg Büchner said, ‘just foam on the waves’ and the anachronism of the theatre the only place where his scream can still echo.

Attilio Scarpellini, critic, writer and, dramaturg. One of the founders of the Lettera 22 association of journalists and one of the main supporters of the Independent Theatre movement, he has written on the pages of Diario and the online weekly La differenza. He edited the magazine Quaderni del teatro di Roma and collaborated on the theatre column of doppiozero. A dramaturgy tutor at Elvira Frosini and Daniele Timpano's ‘Corpo scritto’ workshop, he has taught at the University of Rome La Sapienza and at the Da.re school of advanced dance training. His writings include L'angelo rovesciato. Quattro saggi sull'11 settembre e la scomparsa della realtà (Idea, 2008), La fortezza vuota. Discorso sulla perdita di senso del teatro (with Massimiliano Civica, Edizioni dell'asino, 2014), Il tempo sospeso delle immagini (Mimesis, 2020) and Figlio di cane (Mimesis, 2024). He talks about images and books at the microphones of Rai Radio 3.

In the monologue "Clic", by the unforgettable author of "Code", the scene is hinted at as a hospital. He exists, evoked by a mere name, which makes him a very powerful character, a certain Dr. Dickmans. The monologue speaker apparently freewheels about various themes and issues, produces his own reflections on himself, the world, the situation he is experiencing. But we follow this voice with growing disquiet, as it becomes clearer and clearer to us at every step that the narration itself is the story, not what the voice says. Indeed, the voice is often interrupted by a sign/sound, i.e. a 'click', which breaks its course just as it simultaneously breaks our mental reconstruction of the scene.
The continuous fractures are thus as much of the monologue-giver as of the reader/listener. This simple but ingenious 'click' binds us to the monologue more than any other empathic, or narrative, or visual, or experiential gimmick.

Mario Giorgi was born in Bologna in 1956. He has written texts for radio, theatre, TV. He has published "Codice" (Bollati Boringhieri 1994), "Biancaneve" (Bollati Boringhieri 1995), "Sulla torre antica" (Portofranco 1998), "23 : 59" (Rai Eri 1999), "Torpore" (Portofranco 2001), "Alter E" (Un fagiano) (:duepunti 2010), "Società del Programma Spaziale" (CS_libri 2016), "Configurazione Alieno" (CS_libri 2019), "Fiori" (Tiemme 2019).

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition Petrit Halilaj. Shkrepëtima curated by Leonardo Bigazzi and held at Fondazione Merz from 29th October 2018 to 17th February 2019.

“In recent years, Petrit Halilaj has succeeded in transforming his own biography and the recent history of his nation, Kosovo, into living matter for his works. Despite working with a public and collective dimension, his work often originates from a personal experience, and is usually the result of an intimate process shared with the people dearest to him. Using sculpture, video, performance and drawing, Halilaj has developed a deep reflection on the construction mechanisms of cultural identity, on the value of memory and on the role of art in the shaping of collective consciousness in contemporary society.

This small publication has been printed on the occasion of the exhibition Shkrepëtima by Petrit Halilaj (29 October 2018 - 17 February 2019) held at Fondazione Merz.

The Shkrepëtima project presented at the Fondazione Merz continues the artist’s investigation into the historical roots of Runik, the little Kosovar town in which he grew up, from its Neolithic origins to its recent past. The exhibition is the culminating and conclusive moment of the project, entirely produced by the Fondazione Merz. The first and fundamental chapter of the project was the performance held on 7 July 2018 in the ruins of the Runik Culture House, which for over thirty years had been the symbol of the cultural identity of its citizens. This show was followed by another, at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Berne, Switzerland (20 July - 19 August 2018).

The exhibition presents a new series of sculptures and monumental installations that re-contextualise the settings, costumes and stage props of the performance inside the exhibition space. In the work of Halilaj the ruins of the Culture Centre take on a voice to recount history, becoming the expression of a precise will to remember the past in a context in which the desire for removal of memory is very strong. Through his dreamlike and visionary language, Halilaj has achieved a surprising balance between the weight of the history of these fragments and the physical lightness arising from their suspension.