Ricucire il mondo (Sewing the World) pays homage to Maria Lai (1919-2013), one of the most gifted and significant Italian women artists of the second half of the 20th century.
The exhibition follows a chronological and thematic itinerary across three different venues: Cagliari’s Palazzo di Città, Nuoro’s Museum of Art (MAN) and the Stazione dell’Arte in Ulassai, the artist’s birthplace.
With more than three hundred works from public and private collections, including that of Lai’s family, this is her first complete retrospective exhibition.
The section at the MAN, curated by Barbara Casavecchia and Lorenzo Giusti, is devoted to Lai’s works after the 1980s, an intensely creative period, when the artist went public with pioneering performative and relational practices. The exhibition opens with Legarsi alla montagna (Binding Oneself to the Mountain, 1981), Lai’s first group action in Ulassai, and follows the main stages of her public projects through artworks, documentary materials, photographs and videos, weaving them together with Lai’s parallel work in the field of theatre.
Another key element of the exhibition – which also includes a series of signature works, such as the Lenzuoli (Sheets), Libri cuciti (Sewn Books), Geografie (Geographies) and Telai (Looms) – is Lai’s relationship with the world of childhood and pedagogy, which she explored in her production of fables, books, games and workshops, aimed at involving children and adults in a reflection on art’s liberating potential.
- Artists:
Maria Lai - Open:
Friday, 11 July 2014 - Close:
Sunday, 12 October 2014 - Address:
Via Sebastiano Satta 27 08100 Nuoro, Sardinia, Italy - Phone:
+39 0784 252110 - Web:
MAN Nuoro - Opening hour:
10am – 1pm; 3pm – 8pm - Closing day:
Monday - Photo credits:
1. Maria Lai, Reperto, Villasimius, 1982; 2. Maria Lai, Il mare ha bisogno di fichi, 1996, Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte, Ulassai