“Most basements aren’t for people. They are for washing machines, cars, wine, or boilers. If kitchens are for cooking, dining rooms are for dining, and bedrooms are for beds, basements tend to be left undefined—they are simply underground. They are out of sight and open to interpretation. When people go there, they are free to do anything”. (Anthony Huberman)
With a wide range of media, site-specific works, installations, performances, films, actions and new productions, the debut edition of Basement Art Assembly Biennial BAAB_Issue 00 opens in Rome on September 10, 2025 (preview on September 9).
Conceived and curated by Ilaria Marotta and Andrea Baccin, founding directors of CURA. and in dialogue with an Advisory Board composed of Nicolas Bourriaud, Jean-Max Colard, Simon Denny, Anthony Huberman and Lumi Tan, BAAB_Issue 00 is set within the limited confines of Basement Roma – a liminal and self-sustaining exhibition space, founded by CURA. in 2012 –, and is intended as a moving organism, a performing space called to change over time, until it becomes a single body and a choral and collective experience. The first draft of a “so-called biennial” thus presents itself with its own limitations and questions with respect to an ever-changing world, in which to nurture a new critical thought, and activate energies, connections, experimentations, languages, and a new sense of community.
“BAAB Issue 00 is a political act that outlines, highlights, and reveals. In its extensive and layered orchestration, what is brought to light is above all an embryonic, hybrid, metamorphic world, in which roles, times, and actions mix; it is the zero point in which differences and plurality coexist, in which the classical principles of artistic representation are undermined the open boundaries of a new space of freedom and of living together are defined. It’s the site for new assemblies. It is a way to imagine alternative futures”. (Ilaria Marotta, Andrea Baccin)
List of participating artists: Davide Balula (1978), James Bantone (1992), Cecilia Bengolea (1979), Hannah Black (1981), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (1995), Vittorio Brodmann (1987), Claudia Comte (1983), Jeremy Deller (1966), Gina Fischli (1989), Gina Folly (1983), Calla Henkel (1988) / Max Pitegoff (1987), Carsten Höller (1961), Karl Holmqvist (1964), David Horvitz (1988), Than Hussein Clark (1981), Mark Leckey (1964), Lily McMenamy (1994), Nyala Moon (1992), Valentin Noujaïm (1991), Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) (1989), Michele Rizzo (1984), Selma Selman (1991), Tobias Spichtig (1982), Nora Turato (1991), Women’s History Museum (Mattie Barringer, 1990 / Amanda McGowan, 1990).