I LIBRI, LE ARTISTE
The exhibition Books As Art. I Libri, le artiste will be presented on Thursday 5 December, at 18.00, in the presence of Rector Francesco Mola. It will be the third installment of a multi-year project promoted by MUACC, in collaboration with Gramma_Epsilon Gallery, Athens. The overarching mission of the project is focused on ‘restoring’ women’s artistic research back into the cultural history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Research that has been pushed to the margins of the cultural system for centuries, yet now sits in a context that has become essential to the international field of art studies and to the current historical-critical debate.
After the two previous solo exhibitions dedicated to Franca Sonnino and Francesca Cataldi, Books As Art. I libri, Le artiste now focuses on a large group exhibition in which seventy works, by more than fifty artists, are presented in book form.
The book is, in fact, of key importance in women’s artistic research starting with the groundbreaking exhibition ‘The Materialization of Language’, curated by Mirella Bentivoglio in the context of the 38th Venice Biennale in 1978. In this exhibition and during the numerous initiatives curated in the 1980s and 1990s, Mirella Bentivoglio developed her terminology that became central to her entire aesthetic approach: the form and meaning of the book unite two realms, that of Logos, language, and that of Mater, matter. Two opposing but complementary worlds that merge into singular, communicative, and at times, silent poetic testimonies. Where Mater also encapsulates, etymologically, the need to assert an anti-rhetorical idea of motherhood and femininity.
Carrying on that legacy, Books As Art. I libri, le artiste examines the book, or rather, books, by women artists in their conceptual and material dimensions, and across all of their possible manifestations. Books published in limited experimental copies, which within the two-dimensionality of the page encompass the hybridization of design and photography; object-books, in their three-dimensional and multi-material form, set forth the harmonious blend of different signs and cultures. Books made of threads, those of a coherent yet ever-changing, ever-evolving discourse. Books that become the medium of connection and contamination between verbal and visual code. Books as different experiences – capturing and linking the realm of thought, word and image directly to the realm of existence.
A broad palimpsest of small-grand masterpieces unfolds along the exhibition itinerary, starting from the late 1960s and the early 1970s – with In Principio Erat (1971), by Ketty La Rocca, whose images are both a photographic and a performative idiom – until today. Many works are groundbreakers made in an attempt to tear down the patriarchy, such as Tomasso Binga’s Tempo presente, (1977). Others were exhibited in Venice, in 1978, as in the case of Leviathan, a book-sculpture by Gisella Meo, and Iperipotenusa by Lia Drei. From 1978 Maria Lai’s Libro scalpo, elaborated from the Volume-oggetto, also exhibited in ‘Materialization of Language.’ From 1991 Imago Imago, an extraordinary book by Lucia Marcucci, a pioneer of Visual Poetry, also epitomised by the quasi-contemporary Afasia (1992). Other, more recent works demonstrate the dynamic research of female authors over time, as in the case of Francesca Cataldi and Franca Sonnino, who both exhibit at MUACC, with The Book of War (2024) by the latter, symbolically referring to today’s dramatic international scene. Female authors of the past are brought together with artists of recent generations and of different nationalities – among them Astra Papachristodoulou, Maria Jole Serreli, Giulia Spernazza – who represent the conceptual, verbo-visual, and fiber art movement, and who continue to explore – from different points of view, and consistently through their own poetic approaches – the infinite potential of the book as a form of connection, as a statement and vindication. Above all, a claim to freedom.
Books as Art was first shown at Gramma_Epsilon in Athens in 2023, and now introduced as an extended and renewed version, specifically designed for the University Museum of Cagliari. For each of the two exhibition events, Maria Jole Serreli developed two new performances: the performance designed for the Cagliari edition accompanied the preview of the show as part of the Pazza Idea Festival.
Books as Art will be compiled into a single catalogue, published in both English and Italian.
Artists
Marilla Battilana, Mirella Bentivoglio, Tomaso Binga, Irma Blank, Anna Boschi, Francesca Cataldi, Betty Danon, Chiara Diamantini, Neide Dias de Sá, Lia Drei, Anna Esposito, Fernanda Fedi, Ileana Florescu, Coco Gordon, Elisabetta Gut, Marianna Karava, Susanne Kessler, Maria Lai, Rosanna Lancia, Liliana Landi, Ketty La Rocca, Carolina Lombardi, Virginia Lorenzetti, Sara Lovari, Lucia Marcucci, Gisella Meo, Patrizia Molinari, Aurèlia Muñoz, Elly Nagaoka, Riri Negri, Francesca Nicchi, Giulia Niccolai, Antonietta Orsatti, Luana Perilli, Astra Papachristodoulou, Renata Prunas, Betty Radin, Franca Rovigatti, Anna Maria Sacconi, Giovanna Sandri, Alba Savoi, Marilena Scavizzi, Evelina Schatz, Greta Schödl, Maria Jole Serreli, Franca Sonnino, Giulia Spernazza, Chima Sunada, Dora Tass, Salette Tavares, Anna Torelli, Anna Uncini.
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