I started by studying film history, but I quit halfway through to focus on the band I was playing with at the time, With Love. The band played quite hardcore music, and we started travelling around the world early on. That experience became my education, in a way. I wouldn’t call myself a musician; for me, it was more about activism—social, political (pro-choice, anti-homophobic, pro-vegan lyrics for example) and the whole DIY scene. We were making fanzines, records, organising protests, all while the band became well-known for our intense, wild shows. The performances were very physical, almost confrontational with the audience.
While touring in Europe, instead of skating with the other band members during our downtime, I started visiting museums. I’d walk around with a little booklet, taking notes on the things that interested me. That’s how I encountered the practice of artists like Bruce Nauman and Marina Abramović—artists whose work I felt a real connection with. Their performances really resonated with me, and I began to see parallels with what I was doing in the band.
I felt a lack of physicality and danger in those quiet, safe spaces, which contrasted sharply with the unpredictable energy of our shows in squats and youth centres. That contrast sparked the urge to develop something new, blending the intensity of live music with the conceptual depth of performance. That’s when I knew I wanted to become an artist.
When I left university, I told my parents I wanted to be an artist. My father gave me the typical ultimatum: “Either you study or you work.” I moved to Rotterdam and accidentally ruined another artist’s work who had a studio next to mine. To make up for it, I offered to create new work, which led to my first solo show. From there, opportunities snowballed—exhibitions in The Hague, Finland, and, eventually, Venice.
It was all very spontaneous. I even faked a connection with Maurizio Cattelan to get a curator’s text for a show in Venice. I wrote the text myself, claiming it was written by Cattelan, which generated a lot of buzz. Surprisingly, it worked, and people assumed I was a serious artist. A few years later, I met Maurizio and I confessed what I’d done. In those early days, I had no clue how the art world worked, which, in a way, gave me a sense of freedom that I still value today.
I don’t really think of what I do as a career. I live it as part of my life because I feel an urge to create and connect to others. When that urge strikes, I just go for it. My roots in the DIY culture were vital in shaping this mindset. Growing up in the countryside, there wasn’t much happening that interested me. At 14, I felt very isolated—no one around me was into hardcore music or skateboarding. So, I started organising concerts in my parents’ basement when they were away.
That experience taught me autonomy—how to contact various people, set up shows, handle logistics, and even design flyers.
That same independent spirit is still alive and keeps going almost thirty years later like during the pandemic when everything shut down. I organised and broadcasted two performances (DOOU and IONOI) on YouTube, which were quite successful. This self- reliance keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by the art world’s system.
In the beginning, my performative practice was loud, noisy, and quite aggressive whilst installations and sculptures were meant to be meditative, deep and perhaps troubling.
Those elements are still present but in different forms.
Take for example VIT, a recent piece for which I was injected to put me to sleep, then tied up with ropes, and eventually carried by a helicopter over mountains and forests. It’s still rough and violent in some ways, but it also feels meditative and evocative.
Sound has always been a big part of my work, and that continues today, as does the idea of community, which was central in my earlier pieces.
Yes, this was the second time. The first was in Florence, at the Salone dei Cinquecento.
The settings were indeed very different and crucial to the development of the performances. The Salone dei Cinquecento is renowned for its frescoes depicting brutal wars. When I focused on the contorted bodies in those artworks, it reminded me of Alessio, a nonverbal person in the autism spectrum whom I observed daily at a bar just across my studio in Rome. It felt like the perfect context to present the work. At Haus der Kunst, initially, I was assigned the main central hall, but I felt the need to expand, which led to opening all the museum doors, including the one to the terrace, and thus bridging three different inside and outside spaces. To me this was a way to recreate a similar scenario to the one that I experienced from my studio and that is why the projection of the almost three minute loop of the real Alessio was in that particular spot and why the sound was distributed all over the spaces.
Absolutely. The building’s history is undeniable and unavoidable. The museum’s curatorial team and I discussed this extensively to decide what was appropriate. We aimed for a more open performance. For instance, the casting was super inclusive. While in Florence, I worked solely with professional performers or dancers. Here, some participants had no formal training, which added an interesting dynamic.
The synergy between the freestyle improvisations in the main hall and the more choreographed segments was striking, there seemed to be a strong team energy.
We issued an open call, and I was in a mindset to embrace whoever showed up as long as they trusted my process and embraced the performance’s spirit.
That’s a great question. It’s actually a mix of both. I don’t feel detached at all—if anything, I feel more in control. It’s a bit paradoxical because performing is the only time I’m 100% focused. When I perform, I’m completely present, even though it might seem like I’m in a trance. There’s a part of me that’s always aware, knowing when to let go and when to return. As you said Alessio is one of the few performances of mine I don’t perform myself but I felt it was important that I step back. If I were performing, the focus might shift towards me rather than Alessio, who is the main character. People might know me, my story, but they don’t know the performers’ stories. That anonymity is crucial to the piece.
I’m not exactly sure, I’m still processing what has happened during these first two performances.
In Florence, having seats felt right, as it imposed a silent rule—audiences had to experience the entire piece from start to finish, which led to a kind of discomfort that transformed over time. By the end, many people left the room in tears. It wasn’t the majority, but a significant number. This emotional reaction likely stemmed from the prolonged exposure to the performance and the repetitive elements, which are central to the piece.
Repetition, especially in sound and movement, has a meditative quality, much like a mantra. This meditative aspect contrasts with the intensity of the performance, creating a dynamic that I find compelling. Normally, I don’t present a performance more than once, but Alessio feels different. It’s a piece I need to keep developing to fully explore its depth. There’s something almost magical about it—this encounter with Alessio and the world he inhabits opens up new possibilities, like an open window inviting you to step into another Realm.
I wouldn’t say there’s a specific message I want to communicate. I’m always pleased when people are moved when they feel that the piece has reached them on some level. What matters most to me is that the work communicates something, not necessarily a particular idea, but just that it reaches the audience. I’m very interested in the emotional aspects of art. For me, art is like digging through mud, trying to extract something from an obscure material. Interestingly, in many traditions, mud and fog are seen as portals to the transcendent, to the magical world. I think art is similar—you have to believe in something, immerse yourself in it, and then navigate through it.
It’s a bit of both. The band offers me an incredible amount of freedom, and it’s definitely a way to relax, but it’s also part of my practice. Through the band, I’ve learned to connect with the audience in new ways. For example, in Ninos du Brasil, we don’t have lyrics, but we use words that sound familiar, encouraging the audience to sing along.
Ninos is both a practice and a form of freedom for me. It’s not something that takes away from my art; rather, it adds to it. It allows me to experiment, collect experiences, and bring them back into my artistic practice. My first band, which I formed before I even knew I wanted to be an artist, was very performative. That’s where I first felt a connection with performance art. So, while the approach is similar, the experiences they lead to are different. The band feels much more Free.
I truly hope so. As a performer, I’m very aware that a performance is something we create collectively. When I say I’m 100% focused during a performance, it’s because I can sense the people around me. I might not know exactly what they’re thinking, but I can feel their energy, how they’re reacting. There’s a shared energy in the room that we all contribute to, making the experience more complete. That’s what makes performance so special—it’s something we generate together by being in the same space at the same time.
