BAAB_Issue 00
Basement Art Assembly Biennial

With a wide range of media, site-specific works, installations, performances, films, actions and new productions, the debut edition of Basement Art Assembly Biennial_BAAB_Issue 00 opens in Rome on September 10, 2025.

Conceived and curated by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, founding directors of CURA., in dialogue with an Advisory Board composed of Nicolas Bourriaud, Jean-Max Colard, Simon Denny, Anthony Huberman and Lumi Tan, BAAB_Issue 00 is set within the limited confines of Basement Roma and some occasional offsite hotspots, and it is intended as a moving organism, a performing space called to change over time, in a process of transformation, writing and rewriting that develops over its duration, until it becomes a single body and a choral and collective experience.

The debut edition of a "self-styled biennial" is thus conceived as the teaser of an ongoing project, which presents itself with its own limits and questions with respect to an ever-changing world. The threshold of a claustrophobic and congested exhibition space becomes the place where to nurture a new critical thought, through energies, connections, experimentations, assemblies and a new sense of community.

"BAAB_Issue 00 is a political act that outlines, highlights, and reveals." – the curators, Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, say – "What is brought to light is above all an embryonic, hybrid, metamorphic world, in which roles, times, and actions mix; it is the zero point in which differences and plurality coexist, in which the classical principles of artistic representation are undermined and the open boundaries of a new space of freedom are defined."
In an era in which everything tends towards overexposure, Basement Art Assembly Biennial invites us to change perspective and look downwards because "underground is the new institution."

"Underground is the site for new assemblies. It is a way to imagine alternative futures" – Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, confirm.

The first list of participating artists includes: Davide Balula (1978), James Bantone (1992), Cecilia Bengolea (1979), Hannah Black (1981), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (1995), Vittorio Brodmann (1987), Claudia Comte (1983), Jeremy Deller (1966), Gina Fischli (1989), Gina Folly (1983), Calla Henkel (1988) / Max Pitegoff (1987), Carsten Höller (1961), Karl Holmqvist (1964), David Horvitz (1988), Than Hussein Clark (1981), Mark Leckey (1964), Lily McMenamy (1994), Nyala Moon (1992), Valentin Noujaïm (1991), Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) (1989), Michele Rizzo (1984), Selma Selman (1991), Tobias Spichtig (1982), Nora Turato (1991), Women's History Museum (Mattie Barringer, 1990 / Amanda McGowan, 1990).
A second list of artists will be unveiled in September, as part of an extensive program of readings, talks, performances and screenings, designed to engage both the local and international art scenes.
Each week, the exhibition will be enriched with a growing number of rotating works, actions, and interventions throughout its duration and a social dinner called to involve the community of participating artists, around a cooking session, will conclude the exhibition.... read the rest of the article»