From Sept. 22, 2024 to Feb. 23, 2025, Palazzo de’ Rossi in Pistoia will host a new installment of In Visita, Fondazione Pistoia Musei’s project that, within the permanent Collections of the Twentieth Century itinerary, offers in-depth studies dedicated to landmark artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the temporary exhibition of a single work. The project is curated by Monica Preti, general director of Fondazione Pistoia Musei, and Annamaria Iacuzzi, curator of the Collections of the Twentieth Century. The protagonist of In Visita is Maria Lai (Ulassai 1919 - Cardedu 2013), one of the most internationally acclaimed Italian artists, exhibiting for the first time in Pistoia. The work Untitled (Geography), made between 1982 and 1988, on loan from Intesa Sanpaolo, is part of one of the most important and thematically defined cycles in the artist’s oeuvre and comes from the art collection established by Credito Industriale Sardo to document the contemporary expressiveness of artists active in Sardinia. In addition to the support of Fondazione Caript, the In Visita event is supported by the collaboration of Intesa Sanpaolo and theMaria Lai Archive.

The work executed with sewn thread on fabric and velvet is part of a series the artist made during the 1980s dedicated to the theme of geography. The work is the result of a reflection on the identity of Sardinian women and the symbolic value of thread and weaving as a means of relationship. The work offers an opportunity for reflections on some specificities of women’s artistic languages in the twentieth century and on the theme of geography, which the artist interpreted as a metaphor for the continuous human tension toward what is unknown, space and infinity, in a fragile world threatened by continuous catastrophes. The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of the catalog In visita. Maria Lai, published by Gli Ori-Pistoia, with texts by Monica Preti, Annamaria Iacuzzi and Francesco Tedeschi. For the opening of the exhibition inside the Saloncino della musica there will be an exclusive screening of some of Maria Lai’s artist’s video fables directed by Francesco Casu and music by Romeo Scaccia. Born from the digital elaboration of the Stitched Tales to which the artist has dedicated herself since the 1980s, in parallel with the stitched canvases of the Geographies series, the video-tales give the audience the opportunity to listen firsthand to the poetic and narrative voice of the artist. The screening will be attended by director Francesco Casu, Maria Sofia Pisu and Eva Maria Borzoni of the Maria Lai Archive, and Francesco Tedeschi, professor of contemporary art history at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

In connection with the event, an appointment has been scheduled to explore its suggestions, within Maria Lai’s works dedicated to the geographical theme. On Saturday, Oct. 26, from 5:30 p.m. there will be Sewing and Stitching the World, a reflection on geographical processes and images in contemporary art and current geopolitical events. Franco Farinelli, professor emeritus and former professor of Geography in the Alma Mater University of Bologna, will speak, and an open dialogue with artists Claudia Losi and Zoè Gruni will be offered to the public. Moderator Francesco Tedeschi. Guided tours together with curator Annamaria Iacuzzi and collateral events in collaboration with the festival Pari e Dispari - Dialoghi sulla parità di genere will be offered during the course of the exhibition. In addition, activities for schools, families and adults will be held.

“Attention to the themes of the feminine,” stresses Monica Preti, director general of Fondazione Pistoia Musei, “has been a common thread that has characterized the first three editions of In Visita, a project that was created with the aim of creating meaningful dialogues between Palazzo de’ Rossi’s Collections of the 20th century and the most representative authors of the 20th and 21st centuries. This third edition, dedicated to Maria Lai, confirms our fruitful collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo, thanks to which we have the opportunity to host one of the most internationally appreciated Italian artists. The work Untitled (Geography) on display for the first time in Pistoia invites us to reflect not only on geographical coordinates, but also on the cultural and social ones that shape our present. A reason for satisfaction is also the beautiful series of valuable publications that accompanies the project, with unpublished contributions of great value.”

Notes on the artist

Maria Lai left Sardinia in 1939 to attend the Art School in Rome where she studied with Marino Mazzacurati and Alberto Viani. She later moved to Venice where she was a student of Arturo Martini at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1945 she returned to Sardinia where she remained until 1954: she taught in Cagliari and resumed her friendship with writer Salvatore Cambosu. Back in Rome, in 1957 she held her first solo exhibition at the Galleria dell’Obelisco, but the attention she received from critics did not satisfy the artist. She began an intense period of artistic reflection in close dialogue and collaboration with poets and writers such as Giuseppe Dessì, thanks to which she rediscovered the sense of myth and legends of her land, also experimenting with tools and materials from the Sardinian craft tradition. In 1971 he exhibited his first Telai at the Schneider Gallery in Rome. In the 1980s he devoted himself to Stitched Canvases, Stitched Books and Geographies, while, at the same time, he implemented his first operations on the land. In 1981 in Ulassai he creates the choral action Legarsi alla Montagna anticipating the themes and methods of relational art. Beginning in the 1990s she initiated a series of public art interventions in her hometown of Ulassai where, in 2006, Stazione dell’Arte, a contemporary art museum dedicated to her, was opened. She died in Ulassai in 2013. In 2017 major awards are bestowed on her work at the 57th Venice Biennale and at documenta14 in Kassel; in 2019 the MAXXI Museum in Rome, in collaboration with Archivio Maria Lai and Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte, dedicates a first major retrospective to her on the occasion of the centenary of her birth.

Practical information

Hours: Until Oct. 31: daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. | From Nov. 1: daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Image: Visiting | Maria Lai, Palazzo de’ Rossi, Pistoia, 2024. Photo: Lorenzo Marianeschi for Fondazione Pistoia Musei

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.