CONFERENCE: METAMORPHOSEN. IMAGES OF THE MODERN – JULY 14, 2026 AT THE CASA DEL CINEMA AT 6:00 PM
On July 14 at 6:00 PM, Casa del Cinema hosts a new in-depth appointment dedicated to the exhibition Metamorphoses. Ovid and the Arts. A special conference that invites the public to explore the theme of metamorphosis through new perspectives and reflections, enriching the dialogue between Ovid’s masterpiece and modern languages.
There are ages of the imagination that, due to the foundational strength of the episodes that marked them, laid the groundwork for the mental world we still inhabit today. One of these ages – foundational by definition – is undoubtedly the Augustan principate. So much so that one is tempted to trace the contemporary imagination back, from time to time, to a Virgilian canon, a Horatian canon, or an Ovidian canon. That is, oriented toward a principle of Foundation (of Genealogy, ethos, virtus), a principle of Existence (of Stimmung or Aura; of what Horace calls windiness in one of his unforgettable Epistles), or a principle of Metamorphosis.
According to Hans Blumenberg, moreover, the essence of myth is to live exclusively in its reworkings, betrayals, and its more or less perverse transformations: and therefore the myths narrated by Ovid are metamorphic to the nth degree. They deal with transformations, but their very substance is metamorphic. This is clearly visible in modernity, which followed a so-called classicist conception of metamorphosis (Goethe’s conception of plants), aimed at composing an all-encompassing harmonia mundi, with a reverse one that is restless, intermittent, and always partial. The transition from Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony to Strauss’s tragic Metamorphosen could not be more eloquent. From Klee to Brancusi, the object shows within its own composition the path that led to its genesis: form is fluens just as nature is naturans. Passing through quintessentially “metamorphic” authors of the modern and our contemporary eras (from Kafka to Joyce, from Savinio to Pasolini, from Giorgio Manganelli and Tommaso Landolfi to Luigi Serafini), the focus will be on a key figure of the “Italian metamorphosis,” that of Pinocchio: from which many other literary and artistic paths originate, leading up to the episodes in which today’s masters, from Louise Bourgeois to Giuseppe Penone, have confronted the scenarios and the repertoire of the venue hosting us. Andrea Cortellessa was born in Rome in 1968. He teaches Contemporary Italian Literature at Roma Tre University.
He has curated exhibitions and texts (among others, by Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Manganelli, Elio Pagliarani, Giovanni Raboni, Amelia Rosselli, Andrea Zanzotto, Luigi Di Ruscio, Giulio Paolini, Claudio Parmiggiani, and Luigi Serafini), and created radio and television broadcasts, as well as theatrical and musical performances. Among his latest books are Andrea Zanzotto. Il canto nella terra (Laterza 2021), Filologia fantastica. Ipotizzare, Manganelli (Argolibri 2022), Amelia Rosselli. Con l’ascia dietro le nostre spalle (Electa 2024), Forse che sì. Joyce fra Pascoli e Gadda (Quodlibet 2025), and Una ragione di più per andare all’inferno. Vedere, Pasolini (Treccani 2025). Together with Emanuele Trevi, he edits the «Casa come me» series for Electa, and the «Quaderni di Fisica e Metafisica» of the Cerruti collection for the Castello di Rivoli. He is on the editorial board of the journals «il verri», «Strumenti critici», «Zona critica», and «Moderna», and is among the founders of «Antinomie. Scritture e immagini»; he contributes to «Alias» of «il manifesto», «Corriere della Sera», «Sole 24 ore-Domenica», «Il Giornale dell’Arte», and other publications. Participation in the meeting is free.
Reservation is mandatory at this link