What is good is always being destroyed. There is no wall between inside and out, but rather a membrane: permeable, fluctuating, vulnerable. Sometimes the light, sometimes a glance, a condemnation, an invitation makes it through. There are thresholds at which we hesitate. Who is inside? Who decides who may enter? Spatial configurations enable encounters: doors that only open in one direction; corridors that lead to dead-ends; communal stairwells; central train stations. In these spaces—and in the everyday, recurring, habitual encounters that take place within them—relationships materialise.
The camera, too, moves through and produces space, turning towards, dividing, excluding, and focusing. Again, out of spatial conditions—now those of seeing and being seen, or remaining invisible—relations emerge. The camera doesn’t always wield power here. It can empower, evaluate, preserve or protect what it sees; but first and foremost, it exposes, bringing its subject to light. Through the lens, the gaze is in search of something. It both seeks and produces ‘luoghi sensibili’—sensitive places. It experiences shame. Looking creates vulnerability, documentation shows what is temporary, and movement lends a poor image a frame. There is something to be seen in dazzling light, in deliberate shadows, in the bleed. What was on the periphery shifts to the centre. “Where exactly shall we meet?” It is simply a question of perspective, of position, of the triangulation of gazes, of infrastructure.
“A Good Reputation” is Rosa Aiello’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany and comprises her most comprehensive new body of work to date. Alongside massive architectural interventions, Aiello will present new collaborative and documentary film and photographic works made with Pitt Wenninger, Yutong Su and others. Paintings by Laura Langer will also feature, as well as a performance developed by Dylan Aiello in response to the exhibition.
To accompany the exhibition, Rosa Aiello will release a new publication in 2026 with DISTANZ, Berlin, as part of the Kontext series, including an essay by Yaniya Lee and contributions from von Helin Çelik, Beatrice Gibson and Ivana Mladenović.