Anna Esposito
FUTURANNA
Curated by Paolo Cortese and Francesco Romano Petillo
Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens is pleased to inaugurate on Thursday, March 14th the solo exhibition FUTURANNA dedicated to the groundbreaking Italian artist, Anna Esposito.
Two years after her latest solo exhibition, this exhibition, curated by Paolo Cortese and Francesco Romano Petillo, presents 30 works that date from the 1960s to the early 2000s in which the artist centers her critical gaze towards consumerism and the culture of waste, as demonstrated by the title of the exhibition which refers to Futurama, the famous New York exhibit of 1939.
Through the technique of collage, the use of recuperated materials, and the collection of discarded products and rescued advertising images, Anna Esposito engages her art around the practice of recycling, her refusal of complying with the wastefulness dictated by the dominant mass culture, the reduction of waste, and the repurposing of objects which have been rendered obsolete by the speed of capitalist economy. Foregrounding her critique against mass production and consumerist entertainment since the early 1970s, her sharp ecological and political commentaries are very much relevant under the scope of today’s gravity regarding climate change, and the necessity of developing a culture of degrowth in order to secure a viable future.
Her works – standing as intentional, humorous, imaginative and sarcastic compositions – emerge from the harsh reality of contemporary ecological grief, yet they embody sustainable alternatives. As art critic Ben Eastham puts it in his essay on Anna Esposito’s work: “However clearly it sees the damage wrought by capitalism or patriarchy, the methodology of Esposito’s work is stubbornly optimistic. By modeling how it might be possible for us to live among the ruins, she has created a body of work for the present and the future.”
The exhibition is critically presented by Ben Eastham and is accompanied by a publication, the first of a new Portfolio series, dedicated to the gallery’s female artists.
Biography
Anna Esposito (b.1935) lives and works in Rome. During the seventies she exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions, in public and private institutions. In 1978 she took part in the exhibition Materialization of Language, curated by Mirella Bentivoglio, organised for the 38th Venice Biennial.
Through imagination, technique and experimentation, Esposito plays between old and new materials – fabric, plastic, glass – developing ambiguous meanings with multiple interpretations. In her most recent works, she composes on photography, integrating parts and materials to achieve unity and complementarity of the various elements. Irony and play are the basis of the works, fascinating and intelligent, imaginative and stimulating images.
Her works have been exhibited in group exhibitions in Italian and international cultural institutions, including the Venice Biennial, the Columbia University (USA), the XVI Biennale in São Paulo (Brazil) and Mdina Biennale (Malta).
Her works have also been included in several projects dedicated to artists of the sixties and seventies, including Bentivoglio donation, curated by Daniela Ferrari, at MART in Rovereto (2011), and 1978, Unexpected subject, Art and Feminism in Italy, curated by Marco Scotini and Raffaella Perna, at FM Centro for Contemporary Art in Milan (2019), Histoire d’E part1 curated by Paolo Cortese and Francesco Romano Petillo, at Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens (2021), Re- Materialization of Language, curated by Cristiana Perrella and Andrea Viliani, at Dalle Nogare Foundation in Bolzano (2022), Books as Art, curated by Paolo Cortese, at Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens (2023). In 2022 she held her latest solo show, What I’ve done curated by Davide Mariani, at Gramma_Epsilon Gallery in Athens.
