WOMEN
23 June, 2022 - 30 June, 2023
We are delighted to announce the exhibition WOMEN: a selection of portraits made by female artists who emerged in recent years, creators of new visual languages of great impact and vitality - between introspection and sharing, representation and experimentation. The exhibition begins with two great innovators: Marisa Merz (1926 - 2019 Turin), the only female protagonist of Arte Povera, obsessively created clay heads and drawings of faces that emerge from a multitude of thin lines drawn in pencil; and the South African Marlène Dumas (*1953 in Kuilsrievier, lives in Amsterdam), whose paintings and watercolors since the 1980s have focused on the human figure that overwhelmingly occupies the entire space of the support with its phantasmagorical and seductive presence. The images come from mass culture, but are reworked and charged with new life, becoming more human, close, almost intimate.
For Wangechi Mutu (*1972 in Nairobi, lives in New York) the body is a controversial space and a terrain of exploration to rethink the relationship between human power and the natural world. Using different media such as painting, collage, sculpture, performance and video, she investigates themes such as self-representation, the concept of gender, cultural trauma and environmental disruption.
Chantal Joffe (*1969 in St Albans, lives in London) is known for her fluidly painted portraits, in which she manages to capture the emotions, weaknesses and vitality of human existence: girls and women portrayed in different moments of life, with a gaze suspended between the immediacy of a snapshot and emphatic distortion. The psychological intensity of the characters makes our own opinion ambiguous, disturbing and satisfying at the same time.
The artistic practice of Camille Henrot (*1978 in Paris, lives in New York) – who won Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2013 - combines video, installations, drawing and sculptures. Her bronze sculptures have soft, enigmatic shapes that communicate a multitude of meanings and reflections.
The paintings of Silvia Gertsch (*1963 Bern) portray moments of contemporary life in an almost photorealistic way, in which the light and its reverberations almost dematerialize faces and bodies, producing a sort of transcendence. She works with oil paint on glass panels applied from the back: an ancient technique, rarely used, that amplifies the luminosity of the subjects.
Katherine Bernhardt (*1975 St. Louis, lives in New York) creates large rhythmic compositions of everyday objects with a very direct and American style. She uses fluid and fast brushstrokes that give off great energy, inspired by the rhythms of Moroccan carpets and African patterns. The visual and empathic associations she creates are precise and impressive; the subjects are generally everyday consumer goods or comic book characters such as the pink panther, outlined and constructed with pure forms of color.
In the works of Ella Kruglianskaya (*1978 in Riga, lives in Los Angeles) stylized female figures, often shapely and in skimpy clothes, are caught in mischievous scenes full of humor. In her works on paper and canvas she shows a deeply personal style, partly rebellious, partly classicist, linked to her Russian origins.
In her drawings and paintings Ebecho Muslimova (*1984 in Makhachkala, Russia, lives in New York) has created an alter-ego that she has called FATEBE: a shameless and free figure, who explores the world with her body. Thanks to this subterfuge she is able to represent states, feelings and emotions in a humorous way, using her alter ego as an alibi, touching on themes that may appear uncomfortable, intimate and surprising.
Claire Tabouret's (*1981 Pertuis, lives in Paris and Los Angeles) research evolves from the theme of memory, from images that belong to the past, such as photographs or childhood memories, that she transforms with inserts of acid or fluorescent colors. Her figures appear familiar and at the same time subtly disturbing.
Tschabalala Self (*1990 Harlem) uses various binding and sewing techniques along with painting and drawing. The use of these craft techniques helps her explore how the body - and in particular the bodies of women of color - function as social symbols. The bodies she portrays appear as shattered assemblages that internalize a confluence of cultural projections.
Grace Weaver (*1989 Vermont, lives in New York) portrays scenes of contemporary life saturated with stimuli with a very pop, essential and personal graphic style. With rounded shapes and planes of monochrome color, she synthesizes the way of life and perception of a young generation, creating a language that is supportive of an aesthetics of sobriety and lightheartedness.
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