UTOPIA ANDERSEN

The dream of a world capital. Andersen’s home address appeared in the travel diaries of many distinguished visitors to Rome and its monuments since the early 1900s. It was not only the sculptor’s residence but also his atelier, a vast, light-filled space inhabited by plaster casts, monumental models, sculptures, and architectural studies tied to an ambitious and utopian project he called World City.  A city overflowing with art, envisioned around the Scientific, Olympic, and Artistic Centers, with at its heart the grand Fountain of Life, for which Andersen had already begun to sculpt numerous large statues, captured in this double exposure photographs.

His vision was magnificent and unattainable: “I want to found a vast new international city, in which the greatest achievements of human civilization will be gathered from every part of the world, to be then poured back, harmonized and directed, as streams bringing good and progress to all humankind.” According to Andersen, this city would become the capital of the world, a perfect city where art would embody virtue and secure peace and harmony.

In this photographic reportage, the echoes of Andersen’s utopia merge with the classical ideal of Antonio Canova,  another sculptor who sought perfection through harmony and beauty. The monumental presence of Canova’s works resonates here as a living dialogue between two visions: Andersen’s dream of a universal city and Canova’s timeless pursuit of ideal form.