TO BE, OR NOT TO BE

Performance and video installation of Romina De Novellis Presentation of Bill Viola’s videotape Silent Life Laure Roynette Gallery, Paris 16th October – 29th November 2015 

Laure Roynette Gallery has the pleasure to present Italian artist Romina De Novellis' exhibition,  From October 16th. It will also include a short work by one of the most famous representatives of video art: Bill Viola.

The exhibition is titled « To be, or not to be » and will appear a dialogue between two artworks made by Romina De Novellis ("FASE REM, a serie of nine recent videos in which the artist performs her dreams of pregnant woman, and AUGURII, the video of a performance realized during the FIAC Outdoors in 2014, in which she is confronted with death surrounded of vultures", according to the press release) and SILENT LIFE, 1979, a historical video of 13 minutes of Bill Viola. This portrait of a newborn child in a hospital is ver moving and will be a part of a larger work, called The Reflecting Pool – Collected Work 1977-80.

The two artists (Romina De Novellis and Bill Viola) met last year each other during a retrospective dedicated to the American video artist, which took place in the Grand Palais. Roynette had invited Bill Viola to come to discover the work of the performer. The meeting of the artists showed an intellectual and artistic similarity between them. They revealed to have many common inspirations like the time, the body and especially the work of Masters from the Italian painting such as Caravaggio.

Romina De Novellis is known to be "captivated by anthropology and by the question of the confinement of the human body" and during her career she never stopped exploring these aspects.  She also "realizes physical performances on the body in procession installed in the public space, followed by the look of the passer-by, in which the gesture is central to real alive paintings," according to the press release form June 12th.

De Novellis was and artist and performer born in Naples in 1982. She grew up in Rome and currently resides in Paris. She dedicated many years of her life to dance and theater (she even graduated from the Royal Academy of Dance of London in 1999), but she also began becoming captivated by the art of performance by "subtracting the speaking, the choreography and the stage direction from her artistic to concentrate on an art of gestures in which the body is installed in the urban space." She then went on to complete a Master of the DAMS of the University Rome 3 in 2008. Romina De Novellis also received a PhD to the EHESS of Paris with a thesis in anthropology.

De Novellis's work was also presented as a performance in the Palais de Tokyo for the occasion of the dinner of the sponsors and Friends of Palais de Tokyo in 2015, and many other occasions including: several Nuit Blanches (2010, 2011, 2012), in the FIAC Outdoors in the Jardin des Plantes (2014), in the Friche Belle de Mai, in the context of Marseille, Cultural Capital (2013), to the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (for the Nuit des Musées in 2013), and in the Venice Biennale within the framework of the events of the Opening Week in 2011 and 2013.

FASE REM (Rapid Eye Movement Sleep), is the installation presenting Romina De Novellis and includes “nine videos, reminding the nine months needed by human beings to form intra uterus and come to life: get out and live the real life”. “I dreamed about all the images of this video installation, FASE REM. So, I performed each dream with a small team of collaborators who contributed to the realization of shots and photos… FASE REM it is not the artistic performance of my dreams, it is the true life of what I have dreamed about. It is an endangerment of my body and of my unconscious which went out every time I lived again my dream by not being any more in phase of REM sleep, but in performative phase".

"Opened in 2011 in Le Marais district (Paris), Laure Roynette Gallery represents the young artistic stage and supports the outdoor works of its artists. Just near to the Picasso Museum, the gallery shows several artists, performers, painters, video makers, French and foreigners. Laure Roynette likes to surprise her collectors and using the expression of Robert Storr « Machines à aura »; she appreciates "works which stimulate, help to think about our vision of the world and maybe even sometimes to change it ". Laure Roynette has been representing Romina De Novellis for two years."

Practical information from the press release: To be, or not to be An exhibition of Romina De Novellis, a video of Bill Viola

16th October – 29th November
Laure Roynette Gallery 20 rue de Thorigny 75003 Paris, France
Press contacts: Agence L’art en plus 11 rue du Bouquet de Longchamp 75116 Paris, France +33 (0)1 45 53 62 74 Virginie Burnet v.burnet@lartenplus.com Charlotte Trivini contact@lartenplus.com