Fondazione Giuliani is pleased to present the solo exhibition by artist Rä di Martino, Kant Can’t Can-can, curated by Lorenzo Benedetti. The exhibition explores the interconnections between animation, sculpture and sound that characterize the artist’s most recent body of work. Kant Can’t Can-can is, in fact, a multidisciplinary exhibition that brings together video animation, created with 3D gaming software, and ceramics specifically designed for the spaces of the Foundation. This relationship creates a timeless dimension, in which the virtual and the physical come together through a musical score.
The video Kant Can’t (2024) centres on the oneiric portrait of a group of characters who inhabit an imaginary landscape. Astronauts fleeing from an immense figure of a woman in the process of trying to trample them, hands that emerge like enormous archaeological ruins and gigantic insects that burst onto the scene, form the scenario of an escape into the absurd. The relationship with consciousness becomes an experiential journey, in which reality is magnified by our means of perception. In the video, the primary protagonist is an astronaut who has managed to escape his fate, yet then finds himself in various situations, in a succession of scenarios not unlike those of a video game. The exhibition at the Foundation will premiere an epilogue to the original version of the video, a new chapter for the astronaut in which he’s free-falling in space, singing in chorus with lights that resemble missiles or shooting stars.
Rä di Martino explores the passage of time and discrepancies that distinguish epic narratives from lived experiences. Her work is characterized by a tension between pathos and detachment, a disconnect that interrupts the synchronisation between text and image. With Kant Can’t, the artist further expands upon research that connects to recent works such as Là dove muore, Canta (2022), an animation inspired by Carmelo Bene’s work on music and 3D animation. The music and sound in Kant Can’t are the result of the artist’s renewed collaboration with musician Simone Pappalardo, while the animation/VFX is by Gianni Caratelli.
The publication Kant Can’t, published by Quodlibet in 2025, will be presented during the exhibition.
The original version of the video and the homonymous publication were realised thanks to PAC 2022-2023 – Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, to enrich the contemporary art collection of the Polo della Cultura of the Province of Potenza.
Rä di Martino (Rome, 1975) studied in London, where she earned an MFA from the Slade School of Art. With the Premio New York, she received a scholarship to Columbia University. Her work has been exhibited internationally in museums and film festivals, including: MoMA-PS1 and Artists Space, New York; Tate Modern, London; MCA, Chicago; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Museion, Bolzano; Magasin, Grenoble; the Busan Biennale; Manifesta 7; Kino der Kunst, Munich; Transmediale, Berlin. At the 2014 Venice Film Festival, she presented the medium-length documentary The Show MAS Go On, winning the Gillo Pontecorvo Award, the SIAE Award, and a Nastro d’Argento; the 2018 Festival presented her feature film Controfigura. In 2019, she opened the exhibition Afterall at Mattatoio – Palaexpo in Rome and at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen. In 2022, she held a retrospective exhibition at Forte Belvedere in Florence and a solo exhibition at Torre Matta in Otranto with an installation on Carmelo Bene’s archive. Her solo show Electric Whispers at BAC, Beirut Art Center and Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia will open in 2025.
A very special thanks to Galleria Valentina Bonomo and John Cabot University.