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From: anon
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 08 March 2001
The Rialto Occupato is a squat for middle class artists and bohemians. They have occupied a fancy place right in the centre of Rome, just by Trajan's marketplace ( Serra is on show there). The Rialto used to be a palace or perhaps a government building, and it has beautifully proportioned big square rooms with decorated ceilings and raw walls. The usual Roman art crowd was there, they are smarter than their English counterparts, the men wear English public school boy style jackets, corduroys etc. and the women are expensively dressed with good hair. To an ousider they also seem gentler and more innocent than the London throng. The most flashy thing on show was a kind of giant water balloon suspended in the middle of one room by ropes attached to each corner, with a light, blue perhaps, making the water glow nicely in the dark room. It looked pretty professional and made you think wow how did he do that and what happens if the rubber breaks and the water gets everywhere. The guy who made it was striking,tall and wearing leather trousers. After you see him, it all fits together, and you find the work less interesting. There were some paintings dotted around, painty black marks on white backgrounds and the same marks in white on white. Not badly done but meaningless in a predictable way, and too decorative, it is easy to imagine them out of the squat and back in the expensive flat. In another room someone had made some accurate felt meer cats positioned in anxious meer cat group formation looking at some bad cartoony charcoal portraits. In the meer cat room, a performance took place, a woman in a low cut chemisey top tap danced, a hairy man played the violin, and another woman sang, but I wasn't really listening. Drunkenly I was enjoying knocking over a meer cat, the creator was telling me to stop, but I thought he was just an officious bystander and took no notice. The piece was funnier with one dead meer cat anyway, and I wondered whether a domino effect was possible. I liked the show because I had a good time and because I think squatting in nice buildings is a good idea. It is just a pity that the rich have all the good ideas as well as all the money, perhaps there is a connection.
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