The exhibition proposes a novel dialogue between Properzia de’ Rossi (Bologna, circa 1490 – 1530), thought-about the primary feminine sculptor in artwork historical past and the one girl to have a biography in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, and Lynda Benglis (Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1941), thought-about some of the necessary and irreverent dwelling feminine sculptors. Belonging to distant ages and cultures, the 2 artists, each virtuosos of the sculptural medium, have shared the ambition of affirming their artistic individuality in contexts hostile to or troublesome to entry for girls.

Properzia de’ Rossi challenged the bounds of the period she lived in by her inclusion as an artist in a purely masculine context: the distinguished San Petronio constructing website in Bologna. Such celebrated artists as Niccolò Tribolo, Alfonso Lombardi, Girolamo da Treviso and Amico Aspertini labored on the marble sculptures of the façade portals. In response to Vasari, in shouldering the immense bodily effort of sculptural strategies de’ Rossi was animated by the need for fame and the drive to extirpate male “boasts of superiority,” though she requested the “makers of the basilica” to participate of their work “by her husband.” Vasari additionally underlines the lady’s irreverent nature within the marble panel she usual, depicting the biblical episode of Joseph and Potiphar’s spouse. The artwork critic claimed that the work—which portrays an adulterous affair—is a manifesto of the “ardent ardour” the sculptor nurtured for her lover, vented by artwork. In Vasari’s view, Properzia de’ Rossi’s creative exercise is thus scaled down by the intervention of two males: her husband, as a intermediary for acquiring work, and her lover, as a supply of inspiration for her artwork.

5 centuries after Properzia de’ Rossi, Lynda Benglis has, just like the Bolognese artist, carried out a revolution since her début: difficult social limits and, on the identical time, materials ones by her creative feats. An American of Greek origin, Benglis started her profession within the Nineteen Sixties by opposing the geometry and dogmatism of the Minimalist artwork motion—whose main representatives, comparable to Donald Judd and Robert Morris, had been male—with ingenious colored works. From spills of pigmented latex that delivery work adhering to the ground to the selection of experimental supplies which change their nature over time, every little thing contributes to fuelling Benglis’s creation of works in progress that problem the immutability and static nature attribute of sculptural artwork.

Even in these works exhibited on the MAMbo, the sensible shades of color don’t comply with the canonical trajectory for using white marble in up to date artwork—as within the case of Sol Lewitt, for instance—thus increasing the expressive prospects of the method and leading to a wealthy, deep visible heritage. Her experimentation with color in marble sculpture goes hand-in-hand with the need to protect historic parts, such because the affect of Greek and Baroque artwork, to deconstruct artwork’s temporal boundaries. Benglis’s works protect an anthropomorphic hint captured by a exact gesture and second she defines “the frozen gesture.” They produce a revolutionary new interpretation of sculptural artwork by organising a detailed dialogue between the previous and current.

“Lynda Benglis e Properzia de’ Rossi: Sculpitrici di capriccioso e destrissimo ingegno” presents the Grassi household noble coat of arms, in silver filigree with carved plum or apricot pits, from the Bolognese artist’s creative output. It belongs to the Museo Medievale di Bologna and has been specifically restored for this exhibition. A 3D replica of the marble panel, additionally produced for the exhibition, depicts the biblical episode of Giuseppe e la moglie di Putifarre (Joseph and the Spouse of Potiphar), sculpted for the portal of the Basilica of San Petronio and preserved within the Museo diocesano. The latter is a reproduction of devoted accuracy, extraordinarily helpful within the occasion of the lack of the unique work. It permits guests to the MAMbo to take pleasure in a sculpture not possible to maneuver from its unique walled location. The 3D replica represents a concrete motion to reinforce the cultural heritage entrusted to digital expertise, typically used to protect and restore creative belongings. Each the Grassi household noble coat of arms and the marble panel produced for the Basilica of San Petronio are described and attributed by Vasari to Properzia de’ Rossi in his Lives, the primary crucial textual content of artwork historical past. That is displayed, in flip, in two valuable editions relationship to 1568 and housed on the Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna.

The exhibition options seven marble sculptures created from 2015 to 2021 from the creative output of Lynda Benglis. They arrive from the Thomas Brambilla Gallery in Bergamo and personal collections positioned within the Bologna area. The latter works are an unmissable alternative for the general public to take pleasure in, along with selling the Emilia area.

“Lynda Benglis e Properzia de’ Rossi: Sculpitrici di capriccioso e destrissimo ingegno born from the partnership of the Settore Musei Civici Bologna, Settore Biblioteche e Welfare culturale of Municipality of Bologna and Archdiocese of Bologna—represents a virtuous instance of a cultural technique that goals to create shared initiatives to forge new and interesting diachronic narratives in regards to the metropolis’s cultural historical past.

at MAMbo, Bologna
till Could 26, 2024