Ri-Materializzazione del Linguaggio. 1978-2022

Re-Materialization of language. 1978-2022
2 october 2022 – 10 june 2023
Opening: 1 october 2022 – 11.oo am

The exhibition Materializzazione del linguaggio (Materialization of Language), curated by artist and poet Mirella Bentivoglio, opened on 20 September 1978 at the Magazzini del Sale, as part of the 38. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Biennale di Venezia (38th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale). The show moved across word and image to comprise works of 90 international female artists, poets and collectives engaged in researching verbal and visual issues concerned with the “relationship between women and language”. The materialisation aspect lay in the embodiment of uncontaminated forms of communication to express a transgressive identity of radical rejection of patriarchal language, both poetically and critically.

Re-Materialization of Language. 1978-2022 presents a wide selection of the artworks exhibited originally, together with others from the same years and more documentation material, providing a philological reconstruction of an exhibition that has over time become a point of reference for the research of female and feminist artists, but also the contemporary reactivation of its historical instances. Taking the works themselves as an inspiration, the exhibition layout is primarily built around the alphabet as the zero degree of language, and then develops around the binomials of work/document, exhibition/book, wall/case. The invitation is to continuously update language as this was handed down to us, so that we may reappropriate it and express ourselves in the way we deem most authentic and personal.

The exhibition marks the centenary of Mirella Bentivoglio’s birth (Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, 1922 – Rome, 2017).

The original exhibition will periodically and progressively re-materialized by the interventions of three contemporary female artists — Monica Bonvicini (Venice, 1965), BRACHA (Bracha L. Ettinger, Tel Aviv, 1948) and Nora Turato (Zagreb, 1991) — and a series of digital and live events.

Re-Materialization of Language.1978-2022 is organized in collaboration with MART  – Museo d’arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto.

A special thanks to Museion – Museum of modern and contemporary art Bolzano.

With the kind support of: Autonomous Province South Tyrol, Bautechnik and Eurobeton 2000 .

Technical sponsor: Campeggi.

Exhibiting artists: Annalisa Alloatti; Mirella Bentivoglio; Cathy Berberian; Tomaso Binga; Irma Blank; Monica Bonvicini; BRACHA (Bracha L. Ettinger); Blanca Calparsoro; Françoise Canal; Paula Claire; Rochella Cooper; Betty Danon; Sonia Delaunay; Agnes Denes; Chiara Diamantini; Neide Dias de Sá; Lia Drei; Anna Esposito; Amelia Etlinger; Sylvie Fauconnier; Maria Ferrero Gussago; Mona Fillières; Gisela Frankenberg; Luisa Gardini; Ilse Garnier; Rimma Gerlovina; Natalia Goncharova; Pat Grimshaw; Bohumila Grögerová; Shasha Guiga; Elisabetta Gut; Micheline Hachette; Ana Hatherly; Annelies Klophaus; Janina Kraupe; Christina Kubisch; Ketty La Rocca; Katalin Ladik; Maria Lai; Liliana Landi; Sveva Lanza; Paola Levi Montalcini; Laura Marcheschi; Lucia Marcucci; Benedetta Marinetti; Silvia Mejía; Gisella Meo; Aurèlia Muñoz; Giulia Niccolai; Anna Oberto; Anésia Pacheco Chaves; Anna Paci; Anna Paparatti; Jacqueline Phanelleux; Jennifer Pike; Marguerite Pinney; Betty Radin; Regina; Olga Rozanova; Giovanna Sandri; Anne Sauser-Hall; Evelina Schatz; Mira Schendel; Greta Schödl; Eleanor Schott; Berty Skuber; Mary Ellen Solt; Marlise Staehelin; Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova; Wendy Stone; Chima Sunada; Jacqueline Tarkieltaub; Salette Tavares; Biljana Tomić; Jean Trevor; Nora Turato; Janie Van Den Driessche; Carla Vasio; Tatiana Vladimirova Vechorka; Patrizia Vicinelli; Florence Villers; Simona Weller; Francine Widmer; and some anonymous artistic and research practices.

Click here to download the press kit.