I read Rainer Maria Rilke's Les Roses some years ago: 22 poems that he wrote in  Lausanne, Switzerland, in a few days -  from December 7th to 16th, 1924 - and 2 more poems written just before he passed away on December 29, 1926, at Valmont sanatorium, near Montreaux.

Rilke wrote these poems in French.

Each poem is a rose, a different rose or the disguise of the same one.

I felt the poet's willingness in talking to the flower as if it were an entity of extreme beauty and of extreme loneliness.

The poet wonders if life can be as imperturbably perfect as suffering friendlessness.

I believe that a "theatrical" event may reveal cultural and emotional affinities among the arts in their happening together.

I therefore conceived this project as a one night, theatrical event.

People will come to see my paintings of 24 roses and to hear the reading of the 24 poems which will be timed with my paintings which will change in color and shapes - from light to dark,  because of a phosphorescence acrylic used as a primer.

Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch... VIMEO
Une Rose Seule… YOUTUBE
performance di Milano VIMEO