Johanna Grawunder and Daniel Knorr

LAVINIA is a contemporary art program for the Loggia dei Vini in Villa Borghese Park, Rome—a seventeenth century pavilion that served as a location for summertime receptions, where fine wines and sorbets were offered. Its name pays homage to Lavinia Fontana, one of the first women artists to be recognized by the canons of art history, whose work has been part of the Borghese collection since the early 1600s.

LAVINIA aspires to silently permeate the everyday, addressing those who stroll in the park, straying away from any form of “auctoritas.” It questions and tests the boundaries of public art and tradition, the relationship between art and architecture, unlocking the power of storytelling. Conceived to foster dialogue with the ongoing restoration of the Loggia, LAVINIA works as a narrative machine moving through chronological time, and the cyclical time of the seasons. It repeats itself, seemingly the same, yet always changing. Each opening is titled after a sorbet flavor, reflecting the produce of the season. Some works remain, others leave, new ones are added.

In autumn, the first flavor: orange and lemon verbena. In spring, the second flavor: strawberry and basil introduces two new works by designer Johanna Grawunder and artist Daniel Knorr.

The Loggia dei Vini is enclosed by high retaining walls. Walls, as we know, have an ambiguous status: they protect and they seclude. The skin of the walls tells stories, creates space for forms of life, signals the passage of the seasons. Johanna Grawunder’s wall lamps, Wile E. a Roma, are fields of fluorescent color that draw geometric shapes, highlighting the wall’s surface: plaster, bricks, porosity, thickness, edges, softness, moss. As the title suggests, they are abstract renderings of possible openings, of passageways, of tunnels of the imagination. As in the famous Wile E. Coyote cartoon, endlessly chasing the speedy roadrunner, is it possible to break through from a closed space? Is it still possible to imagine the infinite?

The oval architecture of the Loggia is imagined as a theatrical stage. Daniel Knorr has transformed it into an editorial workshop for the production of his “Artist’s Book.” Now in its thirteenth edition, this publication presents worthless objects collected from public spaces, embedded and impressed between blank pages using a 50-ton press. Each edition includes an introductory text in a minority language of the host country. In Rome, for this form of contemporary archaeology, the chosen language is Latin. How many stories lie in the discarded remnants of contemporary consumption? Liber Artificis is published by NERO, Rome, in an edition of 200 exemplars.

Johanna Grawunder is a designer whose work spans a broad range of projects, including large-scale light and color installations in public spaces. Trained as an architect, she integrates architectural principles with advanced research on light technology. As a partner at Sottsass Associati Milan (1985-2001), she co-designed many of the firm's architectural projects with Ettore Sottsass.

Daniel Knorr’s conceptual, participatory approach interrogates historical, sociopolitical, and economic phenomena within the art context. With extremely serious humor, he ridicules and demystifies diverse realities and relationships blurring their contours, shaping them, or illuminating them. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions at international institutions, including documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel; 5th Berlin Biennale; 51st Venice Biennale, Romanian Pavilion.

Curator: Salvatore Lacagnina

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LAVINIA is a project by Ghella, supported by Roma Capitale, Councillor for Culture, Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage. Free admission.

About Ghella
Founded in 1894, Ghella is a major global force in the construction of large-scale public projects, with expertise in underground excavation. Spanning five generations, it has completed over 190 tunnels, connecting more than 1,000 km of metros, railways, motorways, and hydraulic works. Through Ghella × Roma, its commitment to the city continues with targeted projects aimed at supporting the enhancement of Rome’s historical and artistic heritage.