Lavinia - Parte VI. Sesto gusto melagrana e salvia

Last Jest by Peter Friedl is at the center of the sixth phase of LAVINIA, the contemporary art project curated by Salvatore Lacagnina, produced by Ghella and promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato della Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, in collaboration with Zètema Progetto Cultura.

Started in 2024, the project pays tribute to the late Mannerist painter Lavinia Fontana, one of the first female artists recognized by art history and featured in the Borghese Gallery collection, and was carried out in parallel to the various phases of restoration of the Loggia dei Vini in the Villa Borghese gardens. In the elegant pavilion, which is now open to the public in its entirety following the completion of the works, Cardinal Scipione Borghese used to entertain his guests with wines and sorbets. For this reason, every LAVINIA opening is associated with the creation of a new ice cream flavor. Pomegranate and sage are the flavors of this sixth phase.

Born in Oberneukirchen, Austria, in 1960, a stateless person and a traveler by vocation, Peter Friedl considers himself a failed artist who began drawing more than sixty years ago and has never stopped. The title of his work for the Loggia dei Vini echoes the phrase “This is my last jest” uttered by the dwarf jester Hop-Frog in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name. Humiliated by the king and his ministers, Hop-Frog devises an imaginative and bloody revenge that overturns the balance of power.

Peter Friedl’s “Last Jest” is an open-ended work that operates on multiple levels. It is a work about costume, about art as a historical document; it evokes but does not depict, it narrates but does not necessarily refer to. It deals with history, the relationships between aesthetics and politics, and between power and submission. It certainly has to do with theatre – a recurring theme in Friedl’s work: a theatre torn to shreds, where the action is frozen or impossible.

Previous installations still on display include: Ruth Evans’s clock, Monika Sosnowska’s “Recinzione” for the railing and her handle for opening the entrance gate, Gianni Politi’s seats, Piero Golia’s infinite water fountain, Enzo Cucchi’s artistic grate and the “Dante Desire Line Poetry Path” by Ross Birrell & David Harding.

Free admission