Palazzo Vidoni:
Giovan Gioseffo dal Sole (Bologna, 1654 – 1719), St. Catherine. oil on canvas, cm 129 x 99. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria.
Leonardo di Domenico Del Tasso (Florence, 1464 – 1500), Saint Mary Magdalene at Prayer, c. 1500, terracotta, cm 158 x 39 x 54. Courtesy of Longari Arte Milano.
South Tyrolean sculptor, St. Mary Magdalene enthroned, pine wood (Pinus Cembra) with traces of polychromy, cm 54 x 26.5 x 18. Courtesy of Longari Arte Milano.
Tuscan sculptor, Madonna and Child, second half 14th century, carved and polychromed wood, cm 95 x 27 x 20. Courtesy of Longari Arte Milano.
Giovanni d’Ambrogio (Florence, active from the eighth decade of the 14th century to around 1420), St. Margaret, 1390 – 1400, pietraforte with traces of polychromy, h cm 91. Courtesy of Longari Arte Milano.
Mosè Bianchi, (Monza, 1840 – 1904), Young Woman in a Garden, watercolour on cardboard, cm 42 x 31,5. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria.
Agostino Ciampelli (Florence 1565 – Rome 1630), Saint Catherine, oil on canvas, cm 65,5 x 50. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria.
Emilian School, second half 17th century, Jezabel mauled by dogs (detail), oil on canvas, 36 x 44 cm. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria.
Francesco Corneliani (Milan, 1740 – 1815), Three Female Figures in Landscape, oil on canvas. 70.5 x 91 cm. Courtesy of Cantore galleria Antiquaria.
A sculptor of Adriatic culture around Giovanni Fiorentino (documented in Dalmatia from 1467 to 1506, Female head (Sibyl?), c. 1470, cm 41 x 30 x 28. Courtesy of Longari Arte Milano.
In Europe there have been epochs in which women have primarily been represented as role models, that is, as characters in a narrative that, before as well as after the advent of Christianity, ascribed rather precise tasks to women. Protect, support, care, nurture, but also fight, seduce, hide. Most often in these epochs woman is something before she is someone, that is, she is an illustration of a fictitious character whose story does not belong to real life. It is not the build or physiognomy that characterizes the woman depicted, but her attributes. For Greek deities they are weapons or musical instruments, for Christian saints the instruments of martyrdom, or context characters. And yet they are women, in worlds that, moreover, involve a strict separation of the sexes, in paintings as, arguably, in real life as well. So why not try to suspend for a moment the reasons of iconography and look at the femininity of these figures, as if they were people, and not characters? Forget that it is Mary Magdalene or St. Margaret in order to focus one’s attention on human qualities, giving prominence to possible naturalistic details, or trying to probe the possibility of a psychological trait. And here another work is revealed, and with it the hand of the artist who gave it form. One begins to notice the hair, the cut of the eyes, the lips, the profile of the face, the hands, the posture. Among other things, by adjusting the point of observation we have moved closer to the eye of the collector, and to that of the dealer, who after all cannot but be a collector, and in his own way. Freed of attributes and the narrative that identifies them the representations abandon their temporal anchor. They are female paradigms that it is now possible to relate to the present. They intercept a reality that we can experience, and therefore know better than historical reality. It is said that the art of the past is easier to understand than contemporary art. But this is true only on a very superficial level, and only when it relates the subject to a widely shared narrative (such as that of a Catholic, or mythological matrix for example).Only experts know how to understand the aesthetic values of a certain work and place them correctly in their system of reference, that is, among other works produced in the same epoch, in the same region, with the same materials, or with the same subject. And only the most refined of these experts know how to grasp the meaning that a given work had in the world in which it came into being, and then in the epochs it passed through to reach us. Do not forget that the history of cultural heritage as we understand it is rather recent. History, even recent history, is full of accomplished artists who were forgotten and then re-emerged in social systems completely different from those in which these artists had worked (Lavinia Fontana, Elisabetta Sirani, Artemisia Gentileschi or Marietta Robusti certainly know something about this). But if, as was suggested, to the historical reading we try to go along the search for the feminine here is that in the stone, in the wood, or on the canvas, we begin to grasp expressiveness, which is then the most decisive element, the only one really able to overcome the relativism of taste and allow us to appreciate every artistic language, every material, every style, and benefit authentically from it. Yes, because if it is true that one of the highest functions of art is to help people know themselves better, whether they are the author or the recipient of the work, it is also true that art can help us better understand traits of our being; such as femininity, for example. Works of art have many answers to give, to those who know how to ask the right questions.
Stefano Pirovano
The exhibiton is organined in collaboration with Longari Arte Milano and Cantore Galleria Antiquaria
Lateral bibliography:
- Mirjam Zadoff, Karolina Kühn, “To be seen: Queer lives 1900-1950”, Hirmer Publishers, 2022
- Kate Zambreno, “Heroines”, Semiotext(e), 2012
- Charlotte Mullins, “A Little Feminist History of Art”, Tate Publishing, 2019
- Alice Munro, “La vita delle ragazze e delle donne”, Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1971
- Sofi Oksanen, “Contro le donne”, Giulio Einaudi Editore, 2024
- Ariel Salleh, “Ecofeminism as politics”, Zed Books, 2017
- Florence Rochefort, “Femminismi. Uno sguardo globale”, Editori LaTerza, 2022
- Lucinda Gosling, Hilary Robinson, and Amy Tobin, “The Art of Feminism: Images that Shaped the Fight for Equality”, Tate Publishing, 2019
- Luca Scarlini, “Le Streghe non Esistono”, Bompiani Editore, 2023
- Lucetta Scaraffia, “Storia della Liberazione Sessuale”, Marsilio Editore (nodi), 2019
- Rita Laura Segato, “La Guerra contro le Donne”, Tamu Edizioni, 2023
- Giuliana Sgrena, “Dio odia le donne”, Il Saggiatore, 2016
- Annabelle Williams, “Why Women are poorer than Men (And what we can do about it)”, Michael Joseph, 2021
- Hazel V. Carby, “Cultures in Babylon. Feminism from Black Britain to African America”, Verso Books, 2024
- Bell Hooks, “The Last Interview: and Other Conversations”, Melville House, 2023
- Bell Hooks, “All About Love”, William Morrow & Co., 2016
- Audre Lorde, “Zami. Così riscrivo il mio nome”, Edizioni ETS, 2014
- Audre Lorde, “A Burst of Light and Other Essays”, Ixia Press, 2017
- Silvia Federici, “Caliban and the Witch Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation”, Autonomedia, 2004
- Susan Ferguson, “Women Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction, Pluto Pr, 2019
- Various, “Suffragette Manifestos, Penguin Books, 2021
- Asja Lacis, “L’Agitatrice Rossa. Teatro, Femminismo, Arte e Rivoluzione”, Meltemi, 2021
- Elvira Vannini, “Femminismi contro. Pratiche artistiche e cartografie di genere”, Meltemi, 2023
- Sarah Watling, “Tomorrow Perhaps the Future: Writers, Rebels and the Spanish Civil War”, Vintage, 2024
- Pih Darren, “Radical Landscapes : Art, Identity and Activism”, Tate, 2022
- Gregory Sholette, “The Art of Activism and the Activism of Art”, Lund Humphries Pub Ltd, 2022
- Leanne Prain, “The Creative Instigator’s Handbook: A DIY Guide to Making Social Change through Art”, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022
- Maria Alyokhina, “Riot Days”, Metropolitan Books, 2017
- Naomi Klein, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate”, Simon & Schuster, 2014
- Steven Henry Madoff (Edited by) “What About Activism?”, Sternberg Pr, 2019
- Andreas Malm, Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-first Century, Verso Books, 2020
- Cedric J. Robinson , Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, Penguin Books Ltd, 2021
- Chiara Bottici, “Nessuna Sottomissione: Il femminismo come critica dell’ordine sociale”, Editori Laterza, 2023
- Alessandro Brivio, “Donne, Emancipazione e Marginalità”, Meltemi, 2019
- Simone de Beauvoir, “Il secondo sesso”, Il Saggiatore, 2016
- Bell Hooks, “Tutto sull’amore”, il Saggiatore, 2022
- Jennifer Guerra, “Il femminismo non è un brand”, Einaudi, 2024
- Elena Granata, “Il senso delle donne per la città: Curiosità, ingegno, apertura”, Einaudi, 2023
- Marie-France Hirigoyen, “Molestie Morali: La violenza perversa nella famiglia e nel lavoro”, Einaudi, 2021
- Silvia Federici, “Genere e capitale. Per una rilettura femminista di Marx”, DeriveApprodi, 2020
- Milli Gandini, Mariuccia Secol, “La mamma è uscita. Una storia di arte e femminismo”, DeriveApprodi, 2021
- Silvia Federici, “Caccia alle streghe, guerra alle donne”, Not, 2021
- jennifer Guerra, “Il capitale amoroso”, : Manifesto per un eros politico e rivoluzionario”, Bompiani, 2021
- Adele Clarke, Donna Haraway, “Making kin. Fare parentele, non popolazioni”, DeriveApprodi, 2022
- Donna J. Haraway, “Manifesto Cyborg: Donne, tecnologie e biopolitiche del corpo”, Feltrinelli Editore, 2018
- Ilaria Maria Dondi, “Libere: di scegliere se e come avere figli”, Einaudi, 2024
- Carol Hay,”Think Like a Feminist: The Philosophy Behind the Revolution”, W. W. Norton & Company, 2020
- Sara Ahmed, “Vivere una vita femminista”, Edizioni ETS, 2022
- Bell Hooks, “Comunione: la ricerca femminile dell’amore”, Il Saggiatore, 2023