Deep dive into the digital art world from Baroque to the present day

The exhibition recently launched at Palazzo Cipolla is one of a kind, especially in Rome. Whoever wanders around the city can easily get used to stunning churches, ancient ruins and imposing palaces. But, less frequently, visitors get to experience the metaverse right at the center of the Italian capital.

Ipotesi Metaverso, curated by Gabriele Simongini and Serena Tabacchi and promoted by the Fondazione Terzo Pilastro – Internazionale,started on April 5^th and will be on until July 23^rd. Like no other art exhibition before, Ipotesi Metaverso allows its visitors to travel in time and space to discover other worlds and communication channels. The idea of the curators is to present the visions of 32 current and past artists, from the Baroque to the present time.

Ipotesi Metaverso is one of the first international exhibitions to raise questions about the technological/existential concept of the Metaverse – said Gabriele Simongini and Serena Tabacchi. Palazzo Cipolla, previously hosting the colourful collection of the French painter Dufy, becomes a set, a sort of creative playground where the concept of digital imagination becomes the true protagonist.

The Metaverse is a place where you can do anything, be anyone without going anywhere at all. A place where the limits of reality are your imagination.
Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One, 2018

The exhibition brings together works by leading historical artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Giorgio de Chirico, Maurits Cornelis Escher as well as site-specific works by some of the most innovative and sensational digital artists on the Italian and international contemporary scene – Fabio Giampietro and Paolo Di Giacomo, Krista Kim, Mario Klingemann, Federico Solmi, Refik Anadol, Pinar Yoldas among other innovative artists.

This exhibition is a synthesis of my thinking: today, combining tradition with the new that is advancing, with the digital world, with the contribution of new technology is not only necessary, but unavoidable – said Prof. Emmanuele Emanuele, Fondazione Terzo Pilastro – Internazionale.

At Palazzo Cipolla, the journey starts with one of the most famous and visionary work by Giambattista Piranesi, ‘Imaginary Prisons’ and moves on to Fabio Giampietro and Paolo Di Giacomo’s immersive swing whose spin transmits real life movement to a wide black and white screen.

The experience continues with Andrea Pozzo’s sketch of the fake dome of the Church of St. Ignatius, located just a few steps away from Via del Corso, an iconic example of the Baroque illusionism, and culminates with Boccioni’s visionary work ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’ (1913). Don’t miss Federico Solmi’s paintings and sculptures where images move from a digital world to reconfigure in a physical one.

Throughout the gallery rooms, visitors have the chance to experience virtual and augmented reality, they can walk into ideal worlds, observe AI producing live surreal portraits, admire data-driven algorithms creating abstract, dream-like environments and much more.