During his fruitful artistic career Luca Vitone has always made the complex relationship with the place the object of his research. It is now the turn of Villa Adriana, the nucleus of the articulated project carried out in collaboration between the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Arts and the independent Villa Adriana and Villa d'Este Institute.

The exhibition Io, Villa Adriana, curated by Anne Palopoli and Andrea Bruciati, unfolds between the fluid spaces of the museum designed by Zaha Hadid and the residence of the emperor Hadrian in Tivoli, in a continuous reference between the two places (from 17 June to 12 September 2021). The works presented recall and intertwine cultural, geographical and spatial references, creating a connection, an unprecedented path that the visitor crosses not only physically but also creating new imaginaries. The fulcrum of Vitone's progressive encounters with Villa Adriana are the nine canvases exhibited at MAXXI that give the exhibition its title: placed by the artist in different places in the villa and left for months at the mercy of atmospheric agents, to which the task of producing the image, the large canvases record on their surface the contact with the surrounding environment and the passage of atmospheric and chronological time, making self-portraits of Villa Adriana.

At MAXXI Vitone paints one of the walls of the Gian Ferrari room that hosts the exhibition, using as atypical watercolors the powders collected in Villa Adriana diluted in water: the powder is used as an "anti-pigment", its grain and its different shades of color tell the environments from which it was taken. On the walls are also presented the Capricci, two prints of Villa Adriana conceived by Piranesi, on which the artist has inserted interventions.

On display in the center of the room is the extraordinary Crocodile-Fountain dating back to the 2nd century AD, which emerged from the water mirror of the Canopus of Villa Adriana, where it was found in the 1950s. Probably carved from a single block of cipollino marble, whose veins were masterfully exploited to render the chromatic and material aspects of the animal's skin with realism.