Exhibition promoted by the Department of Culture of the City of Rome and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo
Organized by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo in collaboration wih Latitudo
Realised with the support of Instituto Cervantes di Roma and Lithuanian Culture Institute
The Corpus Naturae exhibition, curated by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini, opens an intergenerational dialogue between two extraordinary women artists: Bianca Pucciarelli Menna in art Tomaso Binga (born in Salerno in 1931) and María Ángeles Vila Tortosa (born in Valencia in 1978). An encounter between two apparently distant women, but bearers through their work of a different sense of existence, one that questions forms of domination, hierarchy and appropriation typical of capitalist, patriarchal and anthropocentric modernity.
The common thread linking the two artists is precisely the language of plants and a deep connection between body and nature. María Ángeles Vila Tortosa explores the world of plants through prints that reflect on their significant importance in everyday life for domestic protection and care, as well as making visceral and primal connections with humankind. Tomaso Binga’s works, realised from the 1970s to the present day, show how nature is intimately connected to art, to human sphere, and especially to women’s bodies, revealing the author’s epistemological adherence to her feminine gender and challenging centuries-old practices of subjugation.
The exhibition will open a reflection on our relationship with the Earth and the plant world, a reminder of the biocentric view of the universe. This exhibition stems from a desire to reveal the multiple, even unconscious, connections of these artists with the studies of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (Vilnius 1921 – Los Angeles 1994), author of important studies on the sacred identified with nature and feminine, who helped disseminate awareness in the contemporary world of how the Earth was anciently venerated as the Creator Mother Goddess, highlighting the need for a cyclical conception of the universe.
