Genoa

The “Kunst am Wegesrand”, which Anette C. Halm has made the theme of her performance marches in Nürtingen, Böblingen, and Ostfildern, is reaching further: after Paris, where the artist completed her Cité residency in 2024, Genoa is now on the agenda. Together with numerous fellow artists, some of whom have already participated in other cities, she takes the Italian city, “La Superba,” at its word. This brings the city’s name back to the two-faced Janus: topographically with a view of the sea and the hinterland, culturally aware of its mythical past and industrial present, and last but not least—this is one of Anette C. Halm’s main concerns—the contradictory stance toward women: on one side, femicides; on the other, a particularly revered Marian devotion. Thus, along the roadside of Genoa, the city’s red-crossed coat of arms is symbolically turned into a feminist symbol with a sprayed circle, just as Botticelli’s famous “Birth of Venus” is confronted with the forgotten model of the goddess—a Genoese woman whose incarnation of Renaissance beauty was possibly once hung, or should have been hung, in the church of S. Torpete. The stories of these actions intertwine fiction and fact, peace appeals and liberation gestures, books with mindless and insightful content, as well as fragile glass slippers and imaginatively painted garments. The painter and performance artist Anette C. Halm once again reveals the abysses and glorious features of a city that is lovable and livable, even through its contradictions.