The Theater of Disappearance is a major site-specific installation by celebrated Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas, commissioned and organized by NEON.

Villar Rojas is well known for large-scale sculptural installations that radically disturb the sites he engages with. Through his work, he interrupts the status quo of artistic practice and behaviour within a museum, a site of cultural heritage, a rooftop or public space. He creates unpredictable settings for the visitor to explore, places where we feel uncomfortable or are astounded by the alternative histories he suggests. Concerned with ideas of disappearance, extinction, the passage and volatility of time, Villar Rojas creates a new, and often disconcerting, visual language. This commission sees him negotiating with an archaeological site for the first time as he radically alters both the indoor and outdoor space of the National Observatory. The whole site undergoes a transformation – architectural, horticultural and emotional.

The installation titled The Theater of Disappearance is an umbrella title and part of four separate exhibitions taking place in 2017 across Europe and the US through new independent commissions by all institutions involved. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (April 14-October 29), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (May 12-Aug. 27), NEON, Athens, (June 1-Sept. 24, 2017) and the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles (Oct. 22-Feb. 26, 2018).