“I talenti delle donne”. Da venerdì al Museo del Novecento la grande mostra “Carla Accardi. Contesti”
“I talenti delle donne”. Da venerdì al Museo del Novecento la grande mostra “Carla Accardi. Contesti”
A sei anni dalla scomparsa, il Comune di Milano presenta la prima retrospettiva a lei dedicata da un’istituzione pubblica
Milan, October 8 2020 – The Museo del Novecento presents, starting tomorrow, Friday 9 October, a large exhibition entirely dedicated to Carla Accardi (1924-2014), the first internationally recognized Italian abstract artist.
Il progetto, prodotto da Comune di Milano|Cultura, Museo del Novecento ed Electa, fa parte del palinsesto “I talenti delle donne”, promosso e coordinato dall’Assessorato alla Cultura che fino ad aprile 2021 proporrà iniziative multidisciplinari – dalle arti visive alle varie forme di spettacolo dal vivo, dalle lettere ai media, dalla moda alle scienze – dedicate alle donne protagoniste nelle arti e nel pensiero creativo.
Curated by Maria Grazia Messina and Anna Maria Montaldo with Giorgia Gastaldon, the exhibition fits coherently into a line of research that distinguishes the Museum's recent work: the re-proposal and re-reading of attested female personalities of the Italian twentieth century, such as Margherita Sarfatti, Giosetta Fioroni and Adriana Bisi Fabbri, or the historical-artistic recontextualization of figures previously ignored but of primary importance in the intermedial research of the second half of the twentieth century, such as Marinella Pirelli, Amalia del Ponte, Renata Boero.
“Carla Accardi. Contesti”, scheduled until 27 June 2020, presents the path of the Trapani artist in all its facets, proposing a new reading that differs from the thematic one of the most recent monographs, mainly centered on his repertoire of sign-chromatic painting.
The exhibition project, through approximately 70 works and together with photographs and documents from the Accardi Sanfilippo Archive, brings back to the center of the exhibition investigation the panorama and the historical, social and political context with which the artist related, revealing the lively visual horizon dotted with linguistic comparisons, often also intertwined with younger artists, providing the portrait of a courageous and experimental woman who, at a time when the demands of painting were almost a male competence, achieved great international recognition.
The exhibition itinerary is organized through a series of chronological and thematic rooms, whose works - paintings, plastics (sycofoil) and installations - have been identified mainly among those included in the prestigious and fundamental reviews, personal exhibitions and collective exhibitions, Italian and international events, in which Carla Accardi took part from her very beginnings.
The retrospective thus opens with a choir room in which the abstract choice of the Forma group is demonstrated, followed by an in-depth analysis of Accardi's turning point in 1953, when he started painting in white on black and the "Negatives" series. The third room tells of the partnership with the international critic Michel Tapié, which reached its peak with the "Integrations" and the "Sectors", anticipations of a return to colour, optical and vibrant, the true protagonist of the sign works of the sixties. Great space is then reserved for Accardi's research on new materials - plastics and fluorescent colors - and on spatial trespassing, with installations and environments, but also with the more conceptual works inevitably linked to her feminist militancy. Thus we arrive at the research of the eighties, with the return to painting, to less artificial materials and techniques, to a revisitation of his previous repertoire of signs and his historical references, Matisse first and foremost, elements that continue in Accardi's research up to the nineties and two thousand, witnessed in the last two rooms of this rich retrospective.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog from the Electa publishing house, with essays which, in line with the itinerary, contribute to defining the varied socio-cultural context in which the artist worked.
Updated: 08/10/2020