XCVIII

Spazio nuovo, Rome : 22 Novembre – 22 Dicembre, 2023

With XCVIII, textile sculptor Sergio Roger seeks to explore the way fragments of sculptures and bas-reliefs shape our perception of antique art. In his first solo show in Rome, he wrestles with the idea of absence and erasure, reducing his artworks to their physical properties, namely for their weight and material composition. XCVIII does, in fact, indicate the total weight of his sculptures in kilograms, and this emphasis on physicality both reifies and abstracts Roger’s new fragmentary works. 

Roger continues to challenge our assumptions on classical statuary. This time, by reinterpreting fragmentary sculptures located in the Neues Museum, The British Museum, and Palazzo Altemps, institutions that are all notable for their archaeological collections, he pulls the curtain from the idealized grandiosity to highlight how fragments have historically been decontextualized, idealized, and at times, misrepresented. 

Roger’s work echoes Shelley’s Ozymandias. The 1817 sonnet revolves around the discovery of the remains of a once magnificent colossus, inspired by the British Museum’s acquisition of the head and torso fragment of a statue of Ramesses II, now only a fragment of its former glory. It brings into question the weight of past grandeur and artistic authorship in equal measure. Time progressively eroded and destroyed a once colossal and majestic artifact, and the wealth and conquest of the ruler portrayed in the statue.

Through sculptures fashioned in antique linen tinted in grey and earth tones with natural dye, Roger reflects on the impermanence of time and its ruinous force, signaled by the fragmentary nature of his works: a soldier statue is missing his limbs, a stately head is disembodied, the figures of a bas-relief are partially erased, thus becoming more stylized. Unlike the case of archeological findings, whose fragmentary nature is seen as a limit, though, he deliberately aestheticizes fragments and elevates them to artworks in their own right. 

From a strictly stylistic point of view, Roger is now moving away from monochromatic linens and silks in favor of a dyeing technique meant to recreate the patina and texture of marble as it appeared in collodion-processed photography– the chosen medium for the earliest photographic documentations of archaeological works. In collodion-processed photography, the shimmery, luminous quality of the highlights, contrasted with the stark shadows of the darker areas, give the photographs  an otherworldly quality, a mirage at the end of an archeological expedition. He explores this artistic medium both in his installations, in a trompe-l’oeil way, and directly, by providing a series of collodion-process photographs of his own work that serve as companion pieces to his sculptures. XCVIII marks the first time Roger explicitly uses photography as a medium to enhance his Weltanschauung. 

Located in the heart of Rome, Spazio Nuovo and its bright, white gallery space is the ideal canvas for Roger’s first Rome solo show. The venue is known for championing artists who reinterpret classical art and statuary in a way that challenges our preconceived notions of a 2500-year-long tradition.