Begegnung mit Antonio Rezza und Flavia Mastrella

At the Italian Cultural Institute Cologne, the artists Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella will present themselves to the local public and talk about their artistic careers, which were already reported on in 2014 in the publication Clamori al vento. L'arte, la vita, i miracoli, published by Il Saggiatore. The meeting will be moderated by Cristina Giordano.

Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza have been pursuing a common artistic path since 1987. Drawing on various art forms, performance has become their trademark. The two of them break into the spectator's life like mischief. They storm into the theater and devastate it. They constantly produce new events, short circuits and a darkness created sometimes by excess, sometimes by lack. They overwhelm and disturb. They crumble everyday life under layers of desperately funny screams.
Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza have always created gruelling works; works in which a poetics of the fragmentary is combined with performative experiences, in which speed - like screams in the wind! - also consists of dazzling sculptures, stage sets, heart-rending screams and deformed bodies. Clamori al vento is not only an astonishing performance text in which writing is also overwhelmed by Mastrella and Rezza's assault on the limits of the human. It is their poetic declaration, their monumental collective work, an indispensable tool for immersing oneself in the work of two artists who have shaped and will continue to shape our present.

Flavia Mastrella and Antonio Rezza deal with involuntary communication. They have realized fifteen plays (including Pitecus, Io, Fotofinish, Bahamuth, 7-14-21-28, Doppia Identità, Fratto_X, Anelante, Amistade, Hybris), seven feature films (including Escoriandoli, presented in Venice in 1996, Delitto sul Po, Milano Via Padova and Samp, presented in Venice in 2020) and an endless series of short and medium-length films. Flavia Mastrella also works with sculpture, photography and video sculpture and has exhibited L'esaltazione dell'insignificante at Mambo, Boe alla deriva at PAN and Il microcosmo at the Museo della Certosa di San Lorenzo. Antonio Rezza deals with literature and has published novels with Bompiani and La Nave di Teseo: in 2008 he won the Premio Feronia 2008 with Credo in un solo oblio. In 2000, they produced the program Troppolitani for RAI 3. The multiple award-winning artists received the Premio Alinovi for interdisciplinary art in 2008, the Premio Hystrio and the Premio Ubu in 2013 and the Leone d'oro for lifetime achievement in the field of theater at the Venice Biennale in 2018. Antonio Rezza has been working with Il Sole 24 Ore and the magazine Linus since 2023, which publishes his unpublished stories. Flavia Mastrella exhibited Il deserto che mi circonda, an eco-polemical photo-video installation, at Conflenti for Pramantha Arte in 2025. In June 2025, they debuted at the Campania Teatro Festival with Metadietro, their new theater piece. They still collaborate with La Fabbrica dell'Attore Teatro Vascello in Rome.

Born in Milan, Cristina Giordano has lived in Germany (Cologne) for 20 years, where she works as a journalist, author and freelance presenter. She deals with political, social and cultural issues and works for various broadcasters and magazines, including WDR, in particular COSMO ITALIANO. She is a cultural correspondent for RSI (Radiotelevisione Svizzera Italiana) and works on various RAI TV formats, in particular "Presa diretta" and in the past also on "Ulisse", "Meraviglie" and other RAI formats.

Free admission.

With simultaneous translation.