Props and extras referencing the giants of the Rome film industry; the relationship between statue and actor, but also between these two and the spectator’s gaze; the history of film and its hidden aspects; the political struggles of the cultural sector workers of yesterday and today; the Greek myth of rebirth after destruction.

These are the themes of “The Cast”, the exhibition produced by MAXXI, curated by Giulia Ferracci and dedicated to Clemens von Wedemeyer, one of the international artists most committed to experimentation within a new idiom that concerns time as much as cinematic space. For this project the artist has collaborated with Paolo Caffoni, co-editor of the exhibition catalogue (Archive Books), with contributions from Marco Scotini and Avery Gordon.

Clemens von Wedemeyer presents a film show composed of three new works specifically conceived for the museum’s Gallery 5 (Afterimage; The Beginning: Living Figures Dying and Procession) and an installation composed of diverse forms and sculptures (Remains: The Myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha). The title The Cast alludes to diverse meanings including the production of sculptures (the casting of forms), the process of selecting actors (casting) and the gesture of throwing (casting a stone). The exhibition is born out of the research conducted by von Wedemeyer over the last year spent in Rome and deals with a number of its symbolic, historic and contemporary sites such as the Cinecittà Studios and the Teatro Valle Occupato. Through a composite language and multiple video installations, The Cast compares the materiality of film and that of sculpture, the animation of props and the “pure presence” of the extras within the film. The display, configured in four chapters, opens to the public a multiple exhibition route in terms of forms and meanings that cannot be traced back to a natural sequential structure that is instead a characteristic of classic film. The great merit of von Wedemeyer’s work lies in the exposition of that which is separate, as Marco Scotini commented: starting out from the remains of the performing arts and the fragmentation of the cinematographic dispositif, his work guides us towards a new immersive experience in which it is up to the spectator to reconstruct their own vision.