Something in the Water

Curated by Oscar Tuazon.

Water connects the artistic practices of different generations and origins: it is an ever-evolving territory that belongs to everyone and no one.

Something in the Water is the title of the exhibition by the MAXXI Art Department, curated by Oscar Tuazon (Seattle, 1975) with Elena Motisi as associate curator. The exhibition explores water as a metaphor and as an element that resists all attempts to be shaped: an essential medium for artists, a pure mirror. Featuring a new, previously unseen work produced in Rome, the exhibition at MAXXI marks a new chapter in Tuazon’s broader Water School project: a public art initiative that also explores the dynamics and politics linked to access and control over land, water and infrastructure, a holistic practice aimed at creating spaces for gathering and collaboration. Tuazon’s artistic practice, situated in the dialogue between public and private space, moves along fluid boundaries between architecture and activism, privileging relationality over formal purity. His works, born from the interplay between industrial and natural materials - wood, concrete, glass, steel - unfold in installations that engage and question the human body, making it a central presence in the environment.

The exhibition path of Something in the Water develops within the gallery space as a fluid experience, in which water becomes a connecting thread between artists of different generations and origins. The works on display invite the visitor to perceive the subtle connections that bind them together, in a layout that, flowing from the Gianferrari Room along Gallery 2 of the Museum, evokes the sinuous course of the Tiber’s meanders. 

Featuring works by: Lita Albuquerque, Saif Azzuz, Matthew Barney, Christo, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Torkwase Dyson, Leslie Hewitt, Nancy Holt, Pavlo Makov, Virginia Overton, Marjetica Potrč, Ugo Rondinone, Peter Sandbichler, Anna Sew Hoy, Oscar Tuazon.