Echo and Narcissus, a major exhibition at Palazzo Barberini from Raphael to Shirin Neshat to celebrate the reopening of 11 rooms

The National Gallery of Ancient Art at Palazzo Barberini in Rome is the protagonist of a major exhibition scheduled from May 18 to October 28, 2018: entitled Echo and Narcissus. Portrait and Self-Portrait in the Collections of MAXXI and the Barberini Corsini National Galleries, it is an exhibition of portraiture, inaugurating the eleven new rooms of Palazzo Barberini. The rooms that host it were in fact returned to the public between 2015 and 2017: a total of 750 square meters of exhibition space, overlooking the palace’s gardens. This is the wing of the Appartamento Nuovo, where the cardinals of the Barberini family once lived. Also open to the public again are the Oval Hall, which was commissioned by Bernini and is elliptical in shape, and the Hall of Landscapes with deocrations by Filippo Cretoni. Francesco Borromini’s helicoidal staircase will also be usable. After the exhibition, the rooms will be integrated into the Gallery’s visitor route and will house works from the 17th and 18th centuries from the permanent collections, including paintings from the Lemme donation.

The new rooms now, however, temporarily house 37 works by 25 artists from the collections of the Barberini Corsini National Galleries and MAXXI - National Museum of the Arts of the Twelfth Century. A centuries-long dialogue involving artists such as Raphael, Bernini, Giulio Paolini, Richard Serra, Guido Reni, Piero di Cosimo, Stefano Arienti, Maria Lai, and Shirin Neshat. The exhibition, curated by the directors of the National Galleries of Rome and MAXXI, namely Flaminia Gennari Santori and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, in its title refers to the myth of Echo and Narcissus told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: is evoked, we read in the presentation, “the figure of the artist, at the same time Narcissus and Echo, condemned to chase an image, a reflection, an illusion, a metaphor that is well evinced in the theme of the portrait and self-portrait, declined in its countless nuances: From power to eroticism, from the intimate to the exotic, from temporality to spirituality, from the conceptual to the grotesque.”

The itinerary begins in the Salone del Trionfo della Divina Provvidenza (Hall of the Triumph of Divine Providence ) by Pietro da Cortona and then continues in the Salone Ovale, where the Narcissus believed to be by Caravaggio but more likely attributable to Spadarino is located, compared with theEcho in the Void, a site-specific work by Giulio Paolini that emphasizes the aspect of absence and loneliness in the myth of Echo and Narcissus. And again, Markus Schinwald in comparison with Luca Giordano, Richard Serra ’s abstract portraits in dialogue with Hans Holbein ’sHenry VIII and Bronzino’s Stephen IV Colonna, Kiki Smith ’s works paired with those of Rosalba Carriera and Benedetto Luti, Pierre Subleyras ’s Female Nude from Behind (one of the first paintings of a nude woman portrayed live) in comparison with Stefano Arienti’s Intimacy of Gay Couples. In the Winter Bedroom and the next room, visitors will then find Piero di Cosimo ’s Magdalene and Raphael ’s Fornarina along with a work by Monica Bonvicini, and the exhibition concludes in the Marble Room with Gian Lorenzo Bernini ’s portrait of Urban VIII displayed alongside monumental portraits of John Paul II by Yan Pei-Ming.

The exhibition can be visited during Palazzo Barberini’s opening hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. (ticket office closes one hour before). Closed Mondays. Tickets (also valid for the Corsini Gallery): full 12 euros, reduced 6, special reduced for MAXXI ticket holders 8 euros. Free for under 18, schoolchildren and accompanying teachers from the European Union (with prior reservation), students and teachers of Architecture, Humanities (archaeological or historical-artistic address), Conservation of Cultural Heritage and Educational Sciences, Academies of Fine Arts, employees of the Ministry of Heritage and Cultural Activities, ICOM members, on-duty tourist guides and interpreters, journalists with a membership card, handicapped persons with accompanying person, school teaching staff, tenured or on fixed-term contracts, upon presentation of appropriate attestation on the model prepared by Miur. With the Barberini and Corsini Galleries ticket, it is also possible to visit MAXXI at the reduced price of 8 euros. Info at www.barberinicorsini.org . The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog, due out in June, published by Electa, with a conversation between Flaminia Gennari Santori and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, illustrated worksheets by Michele Di Monte and Eleonora Farina and with installation photographs by Agostino Osio. Hashtag: #EcoeNarcisoExhibit.

Pictured is the Narcissus attributed to Spadarino.

Echo and Narcissus, a major exhibition at Palazzo Barberini from Raphael to Shirin Neshat to celebrate the reopening of 11 rooms

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