From January 15 to April 12, 2026, the Fondazione Memmo in Rome presents Hurry Slowly, the eleventh chapter of Conversation Piece, an annual exhibition series curated by Marcello Smarrelli, aimed at providing an overview of Italian and foreign artists who choose Rome as a place of residence and research. 

A highly successful curatorial project that has already involved over sixty of the most interesting artists in the international contemporary scene. 

The title of the exhibition, Hurry Slowly, is inspired by the famous Latin phrase festìna lente attributed by the Roman historian Suetonius to Emperor Augustus, which combines two antithetical concepts - speed and slowness - to indicate a timely and decisive action, yet cautious and reflective at the same time.

Erasmus of Rotterdam, in the Adages of 1508, recounts that Aldo Manuzio showed him a denarius of Titus with the image of the emperor and the symbol of the anchor intertwined with a dolphin: an allegory of the motto festina lente that combines speed and slowness. In this sense, it is taken up by Italo Calvino in the American Lessons, to express the time of creativity: an immediacy that arises from a long sedimentation, a lightning intuition made possible by patient adjustments. The tension between urgency and reflection also recalls Aristotle's distinction between praxis and théôria, describing well the alternating rhythm of the artistic act that can emerge suddenly or mature slowly, but always through a deep process of organizing knowledge. In the age of fast communication, this dialectic between speed and depth becomes crucial, and images once again play a central, almost sacred role.

As usual, the artists of this eleventh edition have been asked to confront a theme of universal resonance, but intimately linked to the history of art, the city of Rome, and its millennia-long history.