L’OFFESA

09.06.2023

The exhibition L’Offesa at Ar/Ge Kunst reinterprets some of the works of artist Lucia Marcucci (Florence, 1933) created since the 1960s, exploring the verbo-visual side of aural poetry, cine-poetry and non-linear editing techniques, also through the contribution of a number of contemporary voices.

Working group: Lucia Marcucci (Italy, 1933), Wissal Houbabi (Morocco, 1994), Elena Biserna (Italy, 1982), Annamaria Ajmone (Italy, 1981) with Laura Agnusdei (Italy, 1990).

Lucia Marcucci stood out by virtue of her table-turning of the poetic word, which became part of the feminist struggles in the 1960s. What the artist defines as “returning the lexicon to sender” means exploiting language with irony to pursue a critical redemption of stereotypes, of gender and the assumptions regulating representation of the female body, and of the forms and habits imposed upon it by capitalist society. like in Lucia Marcucci’s work, the word is brought back to the streets, squares and venues where civic relations might established, and bodies along with them.

On the occasion of the artist’s ninetieth birthday, the exhibition L’Offesa at Ar/Ge Kunst retraces some of the artist’s works from the 1960s up to the 1990s on loan from the Lucia Marcucci Archive and the Frittelli Arte Contemporanea Gallery. The exhibition re-examines how speech, advertising, media and paper were questioned in the 1960s and 1970s through militant practices intensifying verbal and bodily presence.

The exhibition L’Offesa at Ar/Ge Kunst also develops a critical reflection on the contemporary sphere by placing some of Lucia Marcucci’s works in dialogue with the voices of other artists. The artist Wissal Houbabi brings an audio-visual and installation work into the space of dissent and in the struggles in today’s society; Elena Biserna with the scores of The Resounding Flâneuse and the Feminist Steps walk (9–10 June 2023, Bolzano), explores the (auditory) experiences of the nocturnal city from a gender perspective. And as part of Bolzano Danza, the dancer Annamaria Ajmone and the musician Laura Agnusdei present Bleah!!! (20–21 July 2023, Parco dei Cappuccini, Bolzano): a performance that blends gesture and sound, working on assemblages and table-turning of the temporal, spatial and authorial levels. On this occasion, a number of unknown texts by Lucia Marcucci will be published as part of Ar/Ge Kunst’s publishing series Novellas.

Program 09.06.2023 and 10.06.2023

at 9 pm, collective walk by Elena Biserna, Feminist Steps: night walkshop for women, non binary and queer people (3 hours)

Starting from some text scores and protocols by Pauline Oliveros, the Blank Noise collective and Elena Biserna, this collective walk aims to be a platform to reflect together on gendered (listening) experiences in public space and to unlearn some of the behaviours that are assumed as appropriate, safe or expected when we walk. Some first steps to question the asymmetries in spatial power relations, share experiences, imagine together practices of attention, care, resonance, solidarity, re-appropriation or overturning that might feed other ways of occupying space.

Participants: max 15 people, pre-booking required by writing to: [email protected]

The Ar/Ge Kunst show is further complemented by the exhibition Lucia Marcucci. Poesie e no at Bolzano’s Museion, curated by Frida Carazzato. The two solo shows revolve around the experience that gave rise to the Poesie e no happenings. The collage of visual and linguistic signs that characterises this series of performances allows the two institutions to explore two complementary strands of Marcucci’s work: on the one hand the investigation of language starting with the critique of consumer society that finds space in Museion, and on the other, the presence of the word and body in social militancy, through the interpretation further implemented by other contemporary voices in the Ar/Ge Kunst show.

On the occasion of the two exhibitions, the visual communication workshop (Exhibition Graphic Design: processes of cultural practice) of the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bolzano (lecturer and workshop leader Elisa Pasqual, with Gianluca Camillini and Gerhard Gluher), has developed seven communication projects that expand on themes found in the work of Lucia Marcucci and the Gruppo ’70 in a contemporary key. The workshop-exhibition will open on 9 June at 6 pm at the Free University of Bolzano.