All That Changes You. Metamorphosis at Galleria Borghese
Sir Isaac Julien's widely-acclaimed new film, All That Changes You. Metamorphosis, has opened in Rome at Galleria Borghese as part of the larger exhibition, Metamorphoses. Ovid and the Arts.
Conceived specifically by the artist for the spaces of the Uccelliera at Galleria Borghese, the single-screen video installation draws inspiration from Giulio Romano’s fresco cycle at Palazzo Te in Mantua, extending the exhibition through the immersive language of the moving image.
Conceived specifically by the artist for the spaces of the Uccelliera at Galleria Borghese, the video installation draws inspiration from Giulio Romano’s fresco cycle at Palazzo Te in Mantua, extending the exhibition through the immersive language of the moving image.
For its presentation at Galleria Borghese, Isaac Julien has developed a new configuration of the work, specifically adapted to the spaces of the Uccelliera. Built in the seventeenth century as a pavilion to house the Villa’s exotic birds, the Uccelliera is a place where architecture, garden and landscape exist in an inseparable dialogue. Within this setting, the artist presents a single-channel version of the work in which the moving image is multiplied through a system of mirrors that continuously fragments and reflects it. This intervention transforms the exhibition space into a dynamic perceptual environment, where the principle of metamorphosis is experienced not only through the film itself but also through the act of looking, as viewers encounter images in a constant state of duplication, refraction and transformation.
The new installation thus establishes an original dialogue with the context of Galleria Borghese while conceptually extending the exhibition Metamorphoses. Ovid and the Arts. If Ovid’s poem identifies transformation as a universal law governing humans, gods, animals and the natural world alike, Isaac Julien’s work offers a contemporary reinterpretation, demonstrating how change continues to be one of the fundamental lenses through which we understand the present and imagine the future.
