Lugano
Repetto Gallery is pleased to announce its debut at
presenting a special curated project of esteemed Italian artist Mirella Bentivoglio (1922-2017).
Curator, poet, and performer, and one of the central figures in feminist art’s engagement with language, Mirella Bentivoglio developed a multifaceted body of work that resists straightforward categorization. Her practice has consistently explored the relationship between word and image, as well as between verbal and body language. From the 1960s onward, she engaged herself within international currents of visual and concrete poetry, forging a distinct approach through her development of the poetry-object. Beginning in the 1970s, her work progressively incorporated the performance, action-poetry, and environmental poetry. Her artistic research remained focused on a linguistic matrix, the female universe and ecological commitment. She has also played a decisive and enlightening role in the field of contemporary art as an animator and curator of exhibitions dedicated to women’s art, particularly the exhibition Materializzazione del linguaggio at the Magazzini del Sale, for the 38th Venice Biennale (1978), which featured works by women artists only and remains an emblematic unicum of the “female” creative space.
Starting from the historical artwork Simbolo totale (1984), point of conjuction of her political and aesthetic concerns, this curatorial proposal aims to rediscover the remarkable evolution of a 16-year project that has assumed a pivotal role in Bentivoglio’s artistic journey, the core symbols around which Bentivoglio’s research consistently revolved: the egg, the tree, and the poetry. This arc of research examinate the creative power of her work, enlightening the ecological attention, a distinctive element of Bentivoglio’s later years of production, along with the relationship with the earth and the feminist subject.
The project elucidates the intricacy and profound nature of her poetics, as well as her long-standing dedication to promoting the work and narratives of numerous female artists