The project ACQUE BASSE emerged from explorations of water management in the Litorale Romano region between Tor di Valle, Ostia Antica, Fiumicino, Maccarese, and Ponte Galeria in Italy in 2022.
[…] A look at the history of the term “landscape” underscores the compelling complexity of the Acque basse series. The German word Landschaft, like its originally Dutch counterpart landschap, refers to a human settlement, a legal territory, and an object of painting. In the canonically indispensable study Landscape and Memory by the English historian Simon Schama, a definition of landschap is offered in which reclaimed (drained) land and the nature of Italy are set in opposition: “It was no accident that in the Dutch floodplains (…) a community developed the idea of ‘landschap,’ which in English became ‘landskip.’ The Italian equivalents—the pastoral idyll with streams and golden hills—were known as parerga and served as suitable backgrounds for familiar motifs from classical mythology and Holy Scripture. But in the Netherlands, the human design and use of the landscape—depicting fishermen, drovers, ordinary walkers, and riders in the paintings of, for example, Esaias van de Velde—was itself the autonomous and complete story.” (translation MJ)
It is not difficult to see in Doris Frohnapfel’s Buster Keaton–like, bicycle-riding inspector a descendant of these so-called ordinary Dutch figures. Unimpressed by the usual tourist attractions of the region, “the Inspector” focuses on infrastructure, searching for evidence and traces in irrigation systems and beneath viaducts. What concept of landscape is being addressed here? What is shown, and what is left out? What can each medium convey? Thus, the found object of a water hose renders the area in a highly sensorial way, while the watercolors draw attention to art-historical references—for example, to Dürer’s watercolor Dream Vision (1525), or to Cézanne’s The Railway Cutting and Pissarro’s early industrial landscapes (both circa 1870). […]
Marjorie Jongbloed, Gelände-Werk, excerpt from the text on ACQUE BASSE.
