Press Release


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.































 




















 





























International exhibitions

International Archives 1st half of 2025


Something on the Water

MAXXI, Roma (Italy)

18.04 - 17.08.2025

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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.








Exhibition 18 April - 17 August 2025. MAXXI—National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Via Guido Reni, 4/a - 00196 Roma (Italy). T +39 06 32486. Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–7pm




 





 



























 





 











Something on the Water, MAXXI, Roma (Italy)

© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2025 All Rights Reserved

View of Something in the Water, MAXXI—National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, 2025. Photo: Luis do Rosario. Courtesy of Fondazione MAXXI.


 


View of Something in the Water, MAXXI—National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, 2025. Photo: Luis do Rosario. Courtesy of Fondazione MAXXI.