BAAB Opens in Rome: Art and Performance in an Underground Biennial
There’s a new underground space to check out in Rome, and it’s not the catacombs. It’s BAAB – Basement Art Assembly Biennial, the “self-appointed biennial” that opened on September 10th. Conceived and curated by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, directors of CURA, BAAB unfolds both inside and outside the independent space founded in 2012, spreading into cinemas, theatres, billboards, and a city that becomes the echo chamber of a subterranean critical thought.
The artist list is already a statement: from Jeremy Deller to Mark Leckey, from Carsten Höller to Nora Turato, alongside Puppies Puppies and Selma Selman. And this is only the beginning: more names will be added in the coming weeks, along with talks, conferences, screenings, and podcasts.
The opening night, marked by performances, collective actions, and a crowd so dense it spilt onto the street, saw the presence of the directors of CURA, many artists, and well-known figures from Italian culture. Among them were curator Nicolas Bourriaud, Belgian artist Carsten Höller, Swiss artist Claudia Comte, Portuguese artist Davide Balula, Argentine artist Cecilia Bengolea, Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist, and Swiss artist Tobias Spichtig. Also present were Marco Delogu, Elisabetta Benassi, Clara Tosi Pamphili, Gigiotto Del Vecchio, Ruggero Pietromarchi, Damiana Leoni, journalist Alessandra Mammì, and collector Ines Musumeci Greco..
The event confirmed the project’s spirit: less a baptism, more an informal, hybrid assembly, where artists, curators, and the public were drawn into an atmosphere halfway between party and ritual. Unsurprisingly, the claim reads “underground is the new institution”: at the center is not yet another white cube, but a living organism in transformation, a performing space rewritten week after week, fueled by works, actions, films, sound interventions, and social dinners. A growing body that seeks to disrupt classical representation and imagine alternative futures. A choral, hybrid assembly supported by Soho House Rome and amplified by e-flux and ZERO, accompanied by a CURA-signed newspaper for a debut that feels less like a beginning than a political act.
Photos: Niccolò Campita
Text: Germano D’Acquisto
