On the occasion of the 20th edition of Giornata del Contemporaneo (Day of Contemporary Art), the Italian Cultural Institute in Warsaw will host the opening of the exhibition ‘Ri-Materializzazione del Linguaggio 1978-2024’ (‘Re-Materialization of Language 1978-2024’), curated by Cristiana Perrella and Andrea Viliani with Vittoria Pavesi.
The project ‘Re-Materialisation of Language’ aims to restore the spirit and memory of an epoch-making exhibition, ‘Materialisation of Language’, held in 1978 as part of the 38th Venice Biennale and curated by artist, poet and performer Mirella Bentivoglio (Klagenfurt, 1922-Rome, 2017). Dedicated to the verbo-visual research of eighty international women artists and poets who, despite the autonomy of each position, expressed both the rejection of the dominant patriarchal language and the experimentation of new modes of poetic and critical expression, ‘Materialisation of Language’ was the first (and only) completely female exhibition in the history of the Biennale. Despite being a fundamental episode in the institutional emergence of women's art in Italy and beyond, the exhibition was long forgotten and so were most of the women artists who took part in it.
On the centenary of Mirella Bentivoglio's birth, an in-depth study enabled the philological reconstruction of the 1978 exhibition, its genesis and historical context, with the intention of reactivating its critical instances, which are still very relevant today, through a comparison with the contemporary. A large exhibition at the Antonio Dalle Nogare Foundation in Bolzano (2 October 2022 - 3 June 2023) brought together all the works exhibited in the original project, placing them in dialogue with the practice of five artists and designers of the latest generations.
On the occasion of the presentation of the book that collects the results of the research and documents the exhibition in Bolzano - designed by Irma Boom, published by Nero and realized thanks to the support of the General Directorate of Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture within the framework of the Italian Council programme (2023) - the Italian Cultural Institute in Warsaw presents a selection of the works that were exhibited in 1978, from the Gianni and Giuseppe Garrera collection in Rome.