From Sept. 12, 2025 to March 29, 2026, Rome will dedicate a large space to the Pop Art of Mark Kostabi (Los Angeles, 1960) with the arrival of From Pop to Eternity, an anthological exhibition dedicated to the American painter. The exhibition will be hosted in the spaces of the Vaccheria in Eur, which has become the House of Pop Art in recent years, and will gather more than 100 works including paintings, sculptures, drawings and mixed media. The itinerary, with free admission, is curated by Gianfranco Rosini and organized by IconArs, with settings created by Francesco Mazzei and Giuliano Gasparotti for Kif Italia. The catalog is published by RG - Rosini Gutman Collection.
“I have participated in numerous exhibitions over the past 45 years, but this is undoubtedly my favorite, as it is both the most historical and the most current,” said Mark Kostabi. “Not only that, From Pop to Eternity also represents my ideal exhibition because it takes place in the city where I decided to settle and because it gave me the opportunity to collaborate with some people I deeply admire, such as Gianfranco Rosini, Gino Natoni and Titti Di Salvo. I have always painted faceless figures in order to adopt a universal visual language that transcends racial and national barriers. Indeed, my intent is to create an art in which anyone can recognize themselves. I thank all my Italian friends who have made me feel welcomed in the most splendid country in the world! There is no better place than Rome to celebrate creativity and life!”
The exhibition opened last Thursday in the presence of the artist, who accompanied the opening with a musical performance together with Tony Esposito, Greesi Desiree Langovits and Sasa Flauto. The exhibition is part of a project started in 2022, when Vaccheria hosted the exhibition Andy Warhol: Flesh, The Works of Andy Warhol at Vaccheria, followed the following year by From Futurism to Virtual Art. In 2024, with Journey in Pop Art: a New Way of Loving Things, the cultural space formally took on the name House of Pop Art.
The current exhibition represents the continuation of this journey, leading from the figure of Warhol to Kostabi, a friend and admirer of the American artist. Kostabi, born Estonian parents, embarked on an artistic journey that led him to exhibit in more than 160 solo shows around the world. His works are part of such prestigious collections as those of the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York, the Metropolitan Museum, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, and the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
The collaboration with Gianfranco Rosini dates back to the 2000s, with the New Alliance project, which combined visual art and music through exhibitions and publications accompanied by concerts. The exhibition starts with drawings from the early 1980s, such as Ascent to street level (1981) and St Peter’s Mistake (1982), made before the move to New York. It continues with works from the 1990s, including The Studio System and The Rhythm of Inspiration, a canvas to which Mazzei and Gasparotti have dedicated a multimedia installation in the Mirror Room. Sculptures, graphics and memorabilia that enrich the Pop Art narrative are also on display. There is no shortage of more recent works, including Gaming the Course of History, A Space for Reason and Romance in Motion, through to productions from 2025, such as Market Sanctification, Between Worlds and The Pulse of Industry. Three collaborative works complete the itinerary: Facing the Truth, made with his brother Paul Kostabi; Who’s Your Daddy, created with Enzo Cucchi; and The Rhythms of Resilience, the result of work with Tony Esposito.
The exhibition allows visitors to explore the central themes of Kostabi’s poetics: the commodification of art, the evolution of visual languages, the role of the artist in the postmodern era, and contemporary social and cultural challenges. To accompany visitors in interpreting the path, the Ars in Urbe APS Association is organizing a series of free guided tours, with reservations required at www.arsinurbe.org. Appointments are scheduled for October 11 and 25, November 22 and December 13.
Parallel to the exhibition, the second edition of Pop Art Fest, a festival dedicated to Pop culture with screenings, meetings, concerts and guided tours, is scheduled from Sept. 12 to 14. The festival kicks off on Friday, Sept. 12, with a screening of Brian De Palma’s The Phantom of the Stage, followed by live music and DJ sets. A guided tour of the exhibition, a lectio magistralis by Gianfranco Rosini and a screening of George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine are scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 13, with music as the closing event. On Sunday, Sept. 14, it will be the turn of Mark Kostabi’s lectio and the screening of My Italy, a film directed by Bruno Colella with a large cast of actors and musicians, including Lina Sastri, Alessandro Haber, Nino Frassica, Rocco Papaleo, Eugenio and Edoardo Bennato, Serena Grandi, Pietra Montecorvino, Enzo Gragnaniello, as well as Colella himself and Kostabi.
Mark Kostabi, born in Los Angeles in 1960 to a family of Estonian descent, trained in California and in 1982 moved to New York, where he became a major player in the East Village art scene. In 1988 he founded Kostabi World, a workshop in which he produces hundreds of works each year with the help of assistants, a choice that fuels debates about the authenticity of art. His style, characterized by faceless figures in surreal, metaphysical settings, recalls De Chirico and Warhol and addresses themes of alienation, power, and contemporary culture. His works are held in museums such as MoMA, Guggenheim and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome.
A multifaceted artist, Kostabi is also a composer, the author of albums with internationally renowned musicians, and has done covers for Guns N’ Roses and the Ramones, as well as design projects for brands such as Swatch and Alessi. Since 1996 he has divided his life between New York and Rome, where he has consolidated strong ties with the public and Italian cultural institutions. A controversial and divisive figure, he is recognized as one of the artists who have redefined the role of the auteur in the postmodern era, transforming artistic production into a collective and entrepreneurial process.
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| Rome celebrates Mark Kostabi's Pop Art at Vaccheria with more than 100 works |
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