Who is the artist who was naked combing wool on the floor at Rome Art in the Cloud yesterday?

Those who wandered around yesterday, from 2 to 8 p.m., among the stands of Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome’s new modern and contemporary art fair now in its second edition in 2022, would have seen an artist, completely naked, intent on combing wool on the floor of the Nuvola, the venue of the event, in Eur, in an action very similar to that of Marina Abramović’s Balkan Baroque. It is a performance entitled La Pecora (The Sheep), a 2013 work by artist Romina De Novellis (Naples, 1982), presented on several occasions in the past (in 2015 also at the Cairo Biennale), which has been reactivated and repurposed specifically for the spaces of Roma Arte in Nuvola.

It is, De Novellis explains, “a work about social closures and the sense of claustrophobia. The gesture of brushing wool represents an attempt to get out of the brain, fears, anxieties, closures and any form of indoctrination.” During the performance, the artist continuously combs the wool as was done in ancient times in the process of carding, which was used to remove impurities from the wool. There are further references, however: like an animal that cleans its hair, the woman, too, according to De Novellis, “is an actress in the processes of metamorphosis of both material and body, of her own body brushing wool for several hours.” Sheep is part of a trilogy on the same themes elaborated by De Novellis between 2011 and 2012: the other works are La Veglia, from 2011, and La Gabbia, from 2012.

Rome Art in the Cloud, in addition to the commercial stands of the fairs, gave rise to an intense collateral program with exhibitions (that of Piero D’Orazio and the photographic exhibition dedicated to Joseph Beuys, Keith Haring and Hermann Nitsch), installations (by Pablo Atchugarry, Jessica Backhaus, Manfredi Beninati, Stefano Canto, Giacomo Cossio, Atar Geva and Nivi Alroy, Silvia Giambrone, Ludovia Gioscia, Christian Jankowski, Francesca Leone, Miltos Manetas, Marianna Masciolini, Verdiana Patacchini, Lorenzo Quinn, and Giovanni Termini) and performances by Marcella Vanzo, Loredana Longo, Elena Bellantoni, and, indeed, Romina De Novellis.

Photo from the Instagram profile of Romina de Novellis

Who is the artist who was naked combing wool on the floor at Rome Art in the Cloud yesterday?

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.