David Schutter, Neighbors, at Magazzino, Rome

The exhibition’s layout plays a central role in shaping the experience. The paintings, small in scale but heavy with presence, are sparsely arranged on pristine white walls in a minimalist space that amplifies the sense of silence and introspection. Each work is afforded significant distance, creating an atmosphere of contemplative isolation and inviting visitors to focus on every painting individually. This deliberate spacing transforms the voids between the works into an essential component of the display, a silent counterpoint that enhances the meditative nature of the experience. The lighting is stark and precise, highlighting the materiality of the canvases, the textures of the pigments and the subtle tonal variations in their dark, almost impenetrable surfaces. This presentation avoids imposing any narrative, instead urging the viewer to bring their own interpretations to the fragmented echoes of Constable’s world.

What resonates most powerfully in the exhibition is its critical reflection on the legacy of Romantic landscapes and the histories they obscure. Where Constable celebrated nature as a harmonious space of personal reverie, Schutter draws attention to the darker undercurrents of such imagery, exposing their links to colonial and imperial histories. The Admiral’s House, which Constable painted as a tranquil retreat, was in fact the home of Admiral Matthew Barton, whose career was tied to the British Empire’s violent circuits of trade and conquest. Schutter begins with this historical tension, creating works that reject any form of idealization. His paintings are not mere copies or reinterpretations but performative acts that interrogate both the process of painting and the selective memory embedded in Constable’s original works.