Alberta Pane Gallery is delighted to present Via Laurentina Km 0, a solo exhibition by artist Romina De Novellis, organized on the occasion of her performance Star - 100% d’origine italienne, which she will stage at the Centre Pompidou on 22 November from 11am to 6pm, as part of the ‘Biodiversité’ forum.

This solo show, presented across our two Parisian venues, invites the viewer to discover key per- formances from the artist's career, from her early works to her most recent performances, through an immersive installation, a sculpture, a video and photographs.

The title of the exhibition, Via Laurentina Km 0, refers to the artist's scooter accident in Via Laurentina in Rome in 2004. This event marked the end of her career as a dancer and the beginning of her work as a performer. Her very first performance, La festa di Santa Barbara (2007), introduced De Novellis's working method, which involves the body in a performative gesture at the end of a research process — a body that she uses as a means of release, self-liberation, or as a way to assert her identity. In this performance, the artist tells an autobiographical story, drawing on the tragic tale of Santa Barbara, a woman who, like De Novellis, was also a victim of violence and patriarchal culture in the South of Italy and the Mediterranean. Through this shift in language, the artist breaks free from self- censorship and the shame surrounding her personal history.

Her approach has since become even more political and committed. She has developed a perspective as a Crip anthropologist and eco-feminist artist. Her more recent performances, such as Arachne (2018), Luna Park (2018), and The last supper (2021), have taken on a more participatory and community-based approach, focusing on issues of the South through the lens of an eco-feminist reading.

Her work has been shown in major institutions, including the exhibition Renverser ses yeux. Autour de l'arte povera 1960-1975 (2023) at the Jeu de Paume, where she presented La cultura che vive, a series of four performances: Bella ciao, Il gioco della campana, Volare oh oh, cantare oh oh oh, and Del maiale non si butta via niente.

Presented as a small retrospective, this exhibition offers a look back over the past 20 years, allowing viewers to explore the artist’s research through an immersive and poetic installation of floating images, with a special focus on the landmark performance Gradiva, created in 2017 in Pompeii.

Born in Naples and raised in Rome, Romina De Novellis - performer, visual artist, and anthropologist - has been based in Paris since 2008. After training in classical dance, she further studied the body from an anthropological perspective through the lens of Mediterranean cultures and disability. The concept of care is at the core her research and artistic work.

Her performances are defined by long-duration, with endurance being crucial in her approach. Repetitive gestures or prolonged stillness transform her performances into living sculptures. Inspired by Mediterranean rural traditions, the artist aims to adopt a non-binary perspective on society, describing her performances as anti- rituals. She works with stereotypes and icons, reimagining them as pop and decadent symbols, starting from socio-political and ethno-anthropological themes. Her works have been presented in numerous contexts, including Jeu de Paume, the Tuileries Garden - Louvre Museum, MAC/VAL, Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Venice, the MADRE Museum in Naples, the Poznan Biennale in Poland, the Armory Show in New York, the Villa Datris Foundation, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris, among others.

In 2019, Romina De Novellis launched a residency program for artists and curators called Domus Artist Residency, based in Galatina, Italy.