Curated by Simona Campus and Paolo Cortese

 

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. 

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.

 

 

Opening
MUACC University Museum of Contemporary Arts and Cultures
Thursday 05 December – at 18.00

05 December 2024 – 28 March 2025

Address
Via Santa Croce 63, Cagliari

info
+39 070 675 5330

muacc.info@unica.it

Opening hours
Wednesday – Thursday – Friday, 10.00 – 18.00