Bob Dylan: Retrospectrum at MAXXI

“In every picture the viewer doesn’t have to wonder whether it’s an actual object or a delusional one. If the viewer visited where the picture actually existed, he or she would see the same thing. It is what unites us all.” —Bob Dylan

Shai Baitel’s show Bob Dylan: Retrospectrum premieres on December 16 at MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts. It is the first European retrospective dedicated to one of the most important icons of contemporary world culture’s visual artworks.

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After showing at the MAM in Shanghai and the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami, the exhibition is now heading to Rome in a completely renovated edition that will connect with Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI’s dynamic, futuristic spaces.

Over 100 pieces, spanning Bob Dylan’s 50-plus years of creative activity, are on show, including paintings, watercolours, ink and pencil drawings, metal sculptures, and video material.

The pieces on show highlight motifs that have always been present in Dylan’s mind as a musician and that appear in his paintings, drawings, and colors.

MAXXI’s national public collection will be expanded for the occasion by Dylan’s bequest to the museum. This piece was inspired by the iconic 1965 song Subterranean Homesick Blues, which featured the first (and possibly most well-known) music video in history. In it, Dylan drops a sequence of sheets of paper with the song’s lyrics to the beat of the music, which were composed the night before by a group of friends, including Allen Ginsberg, who can be seen in the video. Dylan rewrote these lines on 64 placards in 2018, which he arranged to form a wall beside the television. As a result, the Subterranean Homesick Blues Series mixes visual arts, text, and music.