To Exist, Absurdly - Gelitin/Gelatin
From October 2, 2024, to June 30, 2025, FOROF—a unique institution in Rome that combines archaeology and contemporary art, founded by Giovanna Caruso Fendi—will showcase its fourth season with a site-specific project by Gelitin/Gelatin.
via IG @forof.roma
Gelitin/Gelatin is a Vienna-based artistic collective composed of Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither, and Tobias Urban. The four artists first met at a summer camp in 1978. Despite their long shared history, the collective only began officially exhibiting their works in 1993. Their art is distinctive—immersed in a hazy mix of madness, insubordination, eroticism, subversion, introspection, and chaos. Their projects span a wide range of expressive media, from performance to installation, sculpture to new media. Despite this formal diversity, their works share a central goal: to question the traditional relationship between artwork and audience. In fact, by leaving plans and rules at the door, Gelitin/Gelatin frequently invites the public to actively participate in the creation of their works, transforming spectators into co-creators and collaborators rather than mere passive observers. In some cases, their artistic practice even embraces the destruction of the artwork itself, blurring the boundaries between creation and destruction. For this reason, over the years, they have become a pioneering force in the contemporary art scene, maintaining a unique approach that blends audacity, play, and social critique.
From October 2, 2024, to June 30, 2025, FOROF—a unique institution in Rome that combines archaeology and contemporary art, founded by Giovanna Caruso Fendi—will showcase its fourth season with a site-specific project by Gelitin/Gelatin.
The new work created for FOROF initiates a dialogue with a space suspended between the ancient and the contemporary, infused with historical reminiscences, while fully respecting its primary vocation. Nimbus Limbus Omnibus is the title of the expansive exhibition project conceived by Gelitin/Gelatin for FOROF and curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi. The title encapsulates the essence of the exhibition, closely linked to the history and spirit of the place, and developed around the theme of “freedoms,” which is central to the artists' philosophy. The project directly references the manumissio, the ritual of the liberation of slaves in ancient Rome, which took place in the eastern apse of the Basilica Ulpia (2nd century AD), the ruins of which are now visible in the underground spaces of FOROF.
The artists, Gelitin/Gelatin—Nimbus Limbus Omnibus @forof.roma
The exhibition thus offers a reflection on the theme of “liberation,” meant as a transition from one state to another. As Pietromarchi highlights: “The title can be interpreted as the moment when each of us (omnibus) finds ourselves in a state of transition, an indefinite passage like an ethereal cloud (nimbus) or a boundary (limbus). In the artists' vision, this refers to the liberating power of their art from conventions, prejudices, and taboos, both on an individual and collective level.” Gelitin/Gelatin have therefore created a performative sculpture that physically involves the spectator, who is guided through a dramaturgy of increasing intensity, culminating in a vision where the works appear as apparitions, yet also take on, in some respects, a haunting quality.
The first part consists of a multitude of objects, sculptures, and stage accessories created by the artists over 25 years of activity, used in their exhibitions and performances, and arranged like a large repository or archive of memory, evoking the Roman catacombs. The visitor, descending into the underground space, discovers a path populated by dozens of sculptures made from recycled materials, assemblages, collages, small plasticine paintings, polystyrene columns, dismantled and reused furniture, candlesticks, mirrors, ceramic vases, and plaster sculptures. The result is a vast accumulation that transforms each individual object into part of a more complex work, leading into the actual archaeological space where, in dialogue with the remains of the Basilica Ulpia’s flooring, several sculptures created in 2019 are exhibited for the first time in Italy. This series of large busts, instead of showing faces, presents two identical napes reflecting one another. This intense reference to classical Roman sculpture subverts the traditional concept of portraiture, offering a profoundly psychological perspective that further explores the themes of positive/negative, internal/external, original/copy, capturing the essence of a continuous transformation in a nimbus limbus omnibus.
Installation view, Gelitin/Gelatin—Nimbus Limbus Omnibus @forof.roma, shot by MonkeysVideoLab. Courtesy The Artists and Gallery MEYER*KAINER"
