It kicks off on Oct. 18, 2025 Chimera Mostruosa, the first solo exhibition of Agnes Questionmark (Rome, 1995) in Naples, hosted by Whitespace Projects and open until Nov. 30. The site-specific installation was created as an outcome of the Inaugural Summer Residency of the new Neapolitan space, directed by Alessandra Troncone, who signs the curatorship. The exhibition constitutes a milestone in the research path of the 30-year-old Roman artist, who weaves contemporary art, biology, mythology and science fiction into a reflection on identity and the metamorphosis of the human body.
Chimera Mostruosa takes its name from an abyssal marine species, but at the same time it evokes the myth of the chimera, a hybrid and perturbing being that spans cultures and times. As Alessandra Troncone, guest curator of Whitespace Projects and one of the curators of the 18th Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome, explains, the exhibition “evokes both scientific taxonomy and mythological imagery, uniting different figures and disciplines in a narrative that stages the coexistence of reality and vision.” The works on display, created during the summer residency, include drawings, wax and resin reliefs, videos, sculptures, costumes and props that render the research process conducted by Questionmark in the museums and scientific sites of Naples, from the Darwin-Dohrn Museum to the Museo Anatomico and the Museo Filangieri.
The material gathered over these months of exploration, observation and study has been transformed into a set of visual tables where anatomy, zoology, archaeology and science fiction meet. In the rooms of Whitespace Projects, these traces take the form of a "sci-fictional tale “ - as the curator defines it - that unfolds between Naples and Rome, uniting the two poles of the art project. The Neapolitan installation is presented as a prelude to the large-scale work that Agnes Questionmark presented at the Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome, in the section ”The Unfinished Body," where the artist exhibits the unpublished Exiled in Domestic Life, the result of the same research path.
Agnes Questionmark, born in Rome in 1995, has built in just a few years a path founded on the ability to combine different languages and question the boundaries of human identity. Her artistic practice, which spans performance, video, sculpture and installation, explores the thresholds between biology and politics, technology and corporeality. Her works aim to question definitions of gender, species and humanity through long-lasting actions and installations that transform the body into a terrain of experimentation.
In performances such as TRANSGENESIS (2021) and CHM13hTERT (2023), Questionmark constructs immersive environments in which the body takes on hybrid and mutant forms, challenging social and medical conventions. His work investigates genetic experiments, surgical practices and artificial reproductive processes, treating the body as a site of resistance and transformation. The power relationship between doctor and patient, between human and machine, is overturned from a queer and posthuman perspective: the artist uses her own body as a critical medium to unmask the structures that pathologize nonconforming identities.
The dimension of the body, in Questionmark’s works, thus becomes a field of tension between science and myth, control and freedom, where metamorphosis is not only biological but also symbolic. Chimera Mostruosa brings this reflection into the context of Naples, a city that for the artist represents a living archive of historical and scientific stratifications. During the residency, Questionmark visited local laboratories, museums and institutions, collecting iconographic materials, anatomical drawings, instruments and artifacts that flowed into the exhibition in the form of object-sculptures and visual compositions. The exhibition develops as a total installation, where each element dialogues with the other in a continuous process of hybridization. Drawings and videos alternate with suspended structures, resin and wax molded surfaces, fragments of bodies and marine forms. The effect is that of an environment poised between a scientific laboratory and a fantasy scenario, in which the visitor is immersed in a dimension of continuous transformation. The title Chimera Mostruosa becomes a metaphor for a world in which categories dissolve, making way for a fluid and mutant humanity.
The exhibition is part of a larger research project that ideally connects Naples and Rome through the artist’s practice. During his residency at Whitespace Projects, Questionmark worked in parallel with the Fantastica project for the 18th edition of the Quadriennale d’Arte in Rome, scheduled for the same fall months. The two events share the theme of metamorphosis and the unfinished body, and constitute the two ends of a narrative that crosses different cities, languages and spaces.
Agnes Questionmark, already present in major international contexts such as the 60th Venice Biennale, the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva, MAXXI in Rome, the 14th Gwangju Biennale, the Malta Biennale in Valletta, Mimosa House in London, Casa Flash Art in Milan and König Galerie in Berlin, confirms with this new work the lines of research of her art. His texts and theoretical reflections have appeared in NERO Magazine and were presented at the ICA in Milan, demonstrating the discursive dimension that accompanies his production.
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| Agnes Questionmark in Naples with "Chimera Mostruosa," between myth and science fiction |
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