Roberto Ferri. La forza del corpo
From April 27 to July 19, 2026, the Hendrik Christian Andersen Museum, directed by Maria Giuseppina Di Monte and part of the Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo Institute – Directorate of National Museums of the City of Rome, led by Luca Mercuri, presents the exhibition Roberto Ferri. The Power of the Body, curated by Diletta Branchini.
The exhibition project aims to explore the issue of the visual representation of the body—its figurative, aesthetic, ethical, and ideological aspects—through a comparison between the works of Hendrik Christian Andersen, programmatically inspired by a heroic and canonical ideal that aspired to become normatively modern, and the paintings of the artist Roberto Ferri (Taranto, 1978). Ferri once again engages with the problem of corporeality, now more than ever a topical and controversial issue, torn between the survival of an ideal model and the disturbing signs—or dreams—of a metamorphosis that threatens it and suggests an ambiguous and often dark dimension.
In an era in which the debate on our physical appearance is reigniting with intensity—between opposing forces such as consumerist exaltation, censorship, and the risks of body shaming—the exhibition seeks to raise questions from complementary perspectives. This is especially relevant if we still give credence to Merleau-Ponty, for whom “the body cannot be compared to a physical object, but rather to a work of art.” What, then, is it legitimate to represent of the body? And above all, which bodies are representable today? In what forms? In what contexts? Conversely, in what ways does the theme of the body and nudity allow us to expose certain issues—even the most uncomfortable ones—that closely concern the role of culture and contemporary visual arts?
The “face-off” between the works of Hendrik Andersen, animated by an apparently anachronistic utopia, and the lucidly visionary and provocatively timely painting of Roberto Ferri thus emerges as an opportunity to offer a new critical perspective on the current fate of representing our corporeality—one that is far from merely academic.
The exhibition project includes a selection of paintings by Roberto Ferri created over the past ten years, displayed in the ground-floor hall and the central hall on the second floor, along with a selection of drawings and studies by the artist.
