16 March 2012 – 24 March 2012
I DON'T KNOW HOW A ROCK FEELS
The British School at Rome. With Angela Catlin, Colin Darke, George Egerton-Warburton, Nicholas Hatfull, David Lock, Duarte Natario dos Santos, Felix Schwimmer, Covadonga Valdes
The works made in Rome in 2012 also engage with the idea of archaeology. In them I have used cobblestones (‘sanpietrini’) characteristic of the streets and lanes of the old city to construct small dioramas that echo some of the familiar sites of antiquity. Simultaneously, they evoke the forced perspectives favoured by Baroque architects in Rome, such as Borromini’s corridor at the Palazzo Spada.
Thus actual bits of road, together with clay replicas in diminished proportions, have become building blocks in my reconstructions of the vestigial edifices of an empire in collapse.
CHARLES COOPER
