Curated by Simona Campus and Paolo Cortese

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.

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

Curated by Paolo Cortese
Artists: Mirella Bentivoglio, Francesca Cataldi, Anna Esposito, Elisabetta Gut, Maria Lai, Gisella Meo, Greta Schödl, Franca Sonnino.

During the general climate of protest in the 1970s, women in Europe fought to reclaim their role in society. Since the feminist revolution touched upon many different areas of culture, it naturally influenced the consciousness of the creative world as well. Female art collectives soon formed, and came together to share their lived experiences and to support each other. Many women artists chose to hit the streets and took part at the forefront of the demonstrations, while others carried out their revolution in a different way, seemingly less obvious, yet equally as powerful.

Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s artist, poet and curator Mirella Bentivoglio supported the struggle for female emancipation by curating annual exhibitions for female artists. Gramma_ Epsilon Gallery continues her legacy by introducing today the works of 8 female artists, including Bentivoglio herself, who have claimed their right to be artists by using as working tools the items that were close to hand and most compatible with their creative practice.

They used art as a link between the inner vision, the dream and its expression. A powerful Trojan horse able to break down all kinds of barriers and allow all women to fulfil their dreams and live their daily lives without having to give up the role that the society of the time imposed on them.

A fully realised and complete version of this project will be exhibited in the gallery in Athens from 12.11.2024 to 25.02.2025

@ARTISSIMA 2024

Opening 31.10.2024

01 – 03.11.2024

Main Section

Hall GREEN Stand 13 / Hall BROWN Stand 14

OVAL Lingotto Fiere

Via Giacomo Mattè Trucco, 70

Torino 10126

Curated by Paolo Cortese

Curated by Simona Campus and Paolo Cortese
The exhibition CARNET DE MON VOYAGE traces Francesca Cataldi’s artistic journey, presenting a reading and re-interpretation of her work, as an unfolding narrative consisting of many tales. An ‘unconventional’ library of heterodox, hybrid books, born out of the collision and mutual acceptance and appreciation of different elements, and of the many materials that the artist chooses to experiment with, unfolds and organises itself along the exhibition itinerary.

CARNET DE MON VOYAGE is the result of a collaboration between the MUACC and Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens, marking another milestone in a shared commitment to research, study and appreciation of work by female artists who have contributed significantly to the innovation of contemporary Italian art history.

@MUACC
Museo universitario delle arti
e delle culture contemporanee

06.06.2024 – 13.09.2024

Via Santa Croce, 63
Cagliari (Italy)
info: muacc.info@unica.it
+39 070 675 5330

Curated by Sofia Gotti and Caterina Iaquinta
The 20th Women’s Biennial in Ferrara, to which Gramma_Epsilon had the honour to contribute with the loan of 3 works by Amalia Etlinger, an artist very close to Mirella Bentivoglio and to whom they are also dedicated.

Biennale Donna, a historic event dedicated to contemporary female creativity promoted by UDI – Unione Donne in Italia (Women’s Union in Italy), this year marks its twentieth edition.

From 14 April to 30 June 2024 Palazzo Bonacossi in Ferrara will host Yours in Solidarity – Altre Storie tra Arte e Parola (Other Stories between Art and Words) curated by Sofia Gotti and Caterina Iaquinta, an exhibition bringing together installations, sculptures, performances and textile works created by six international women artists: Binta Diaw, Amelia Etlinger, Bracha L. Ettinger, Sara Leghissa, Muna Mussie and Nicoline van Harskamp.

The project sets out to highlight some of the aspects that have characterised the Ferrara event since its inception and at the same time to enhance its national visibility. The driving concept is to continue to bring women artists to the fore “from the background” while also presenting “a new arsenal of voices” ready to advocate for the need to rethink women’s presence within a world that has become increasingly complex and polarised. Alongside the artists’ works, a valuable selection of historical materials from UDI will be showcased, including archival documents, catalogues, leaflets, banners and photographs, retracing the Biennale’s milestones and evolution.

Curated by Rosanna Ruscio, Paolo Cortese

“It is a short space that suggests infinity”: with these words Jean Grenier defines the Mediterranean. With its problems and its myriad resources, the Mediterranean stands there to remind us of the challenges we face and the need for the salvation of the planet through the realization that everyone’s contribution is needed.

Precisely because of this, it would be useful to think for the Medina Biennial (Malta) the women artists who saw the Mediterranean as a metaphor for a paradigm shift, the possibility of evoking a rebirth. The fact that these are women artists is not to be overlooked, especially since the theme of the Mediterranean in the years between the 1970s and 1990s, the years when most of these women artists were very active, seemed to have marginal aesthetic potential. The themes addressed in their works are borders, plots and warps, as a metaphor for life, an allegory on the idea of travel, exchange and memory. These are artworks by Goddesses who lost and found the perenniality of the theme, of Goddesses rediscovered as evidence of a current discours.

Artists Mirella Bentivoglio, Francesca Cataldi, Chiara Diamantini, Elisabetta Gut, Gisella Meo, Maria Jole Serreli, Greta Schödl, and Franca Sonnino

Athens Art Book Fair is an artist-run initiative aiming to bring together and showcase artist publications produced in Greece as well as to create a link with publishing-based artistic practices (print, online and else) internationally. It was founded in 2019 by Margarita Athanasiou and Michalis Pichler.

Gramma_Epsilon Gallery has been selected to participate as an exhibitor for the fair’s 2023 edition which will take place in Athens Conservatory. The Gallery will showcase old and new artist’s books and limited editions together with its four published monographies-exhibition catalogs.

Curated by Kostas Prapoglou

Non-profit cultural organization Artefact Athens presents The Butterfly Effect, a contemporary art exhibition curated by Kostas Prapoglou, which will take place in numerous spaces of the prominent textile industry “Butterfly Threads – Mouzakis”. The conceptual framework of the curatorial practice of this exhibition involves a poetic and allegorical metaphor of the butterfly effect that lends its name to the title. Curator Kostas Prapoglou invites 41 contemporary artists to present works that will respond to this unique space (site-specific) and context, creating with their visual, multidisciplinary vocabulary, installations, video, sculptures and painting.

Gramma_Epsilon Gallery participates through a site-specific installation of two Italian women fiber artists of different generations: Franca Sonnino and Maria Jole Serreli. Through a grandiose cocoon-installation, made by Serreli, which embraces Sonnino’s textile piece, the project highlights the dialogical relation between intergenerational and collective narratives of fiber art in relation to the space and the history of the Athenian factory.

Artists Maria Jole Serreli, Franca Sonnino

One of the oldest art fairs in Europe, Art Athina has been active since its establishment by the Hellenic Art Galleries Association in 1993. Its strong institutional presence is realized  today by the art fair itself, hosting Greek and international galleries and by its multidisciplinary parallel activities and programming.

Gramma_Epsilon Gallery participates with the project “The Different Revolution”, curated by Paolo Cortese, by bringing to the Athenian public five Italian female artists of the 1970s who have dedicated their life’s work to the mission of female liberation. Highlighting a revolution carried out in diverse ways in a climate of constant protests, the project foregrounds five unique creative talents who fought to be heard through their art.

Artists: Mirella Bentivoglio, Francesca Cataldi, Anna Esposito, Gisella Meo, Franca Sonnino