Maria Lai stars in an exhibition at Palazzo Pitti

Sardinian artist Maria Lai (Ulassai, 1919 - Cardedu, 2013) is the great protagonist of the exhibition Maria Lai. The Thread and the Infinite, scheduled in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti from March 8 to June 3, 2018. The exhibition, set up in the Andito degli Angioini, aims to present the extraordinary figure of the artist who was able to combine the tradition of Sardinian civilization with the languages of contemporary art. At a time of profound critical rediscovery of the artist (now present in all international exhibitions, including the last Venice Biennale), the Florentine exhibition, curated by Elena Pontiggia, traces Maria Lai’s entire career, from the realist works of the 1940s to the informal of the 1950s, to the polymathic works of the following decade and the conceptual works of the rest of her career.

There is also space for an analysis of Maria Lai’s best-known masterpiece, the performance Legarsi alla montagna, during which, involving the entire village of Ulassai, where she was born in 1919, she managed to run a thread around the mountains of Ogliastra, twenty-six kilometers long in all: an extraordinary metaphor for her thought (Maria Lai said “this is what art should do: make us feel more united”). Then there will be no shortage of works made with looms, an object symbolic of the Sardinian craft tradition: the 1967Object-landscape is a loom undone with broken threads that becomes a nouveau réaliste installation, capable of dialoguing with the art of Arman, Spoerri, and Pascali. And again, the Sewn Canvases, indebted to the works of Burri (think of the sacks), Prampolini (the polymateric works) and Scarpitta (the wrapped canvases), but also capable of dialoguing with Manzoni, Castellani, Bonalumi, Dadamaino. The Florentine exhibition also exhibits the Scriptures from which the celebrated Libri were born.

This is not the first time that Florentine museums have hosted Maria Lai: back in 2004 the artist set up an Invitation to the Table at the Boboli Gardens, a large table set with bread and terracotta books, now on display in New York. Maria Lai’s art, after all, also owed debts to the Florentine tradition, starting with Leonardo da Vinci ’ s maps, which the artist copied in Florence, and ending with Il mare ha bisogno di fichi, a work created for the 20th anniversary of the 1966 Florence flood.

“After the two exhibitions dedicated to Plautilla Nelli and Maria Lassnig in 2017,” says Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries, “now for the second time the Uffizi Galleries are taking the cue from International Women’s Day to offer the public two exhibitions dedicated to the work of women artists, one from the past and one contemporary. Paradoxically, the seventeenth-century artist on whom we turn the spotlight this year, Elisabetta Sirani, died when she was only 27 years old, and therefore even after four centuries have passed she will always be remembered as young, as if she were part of our present, if not even our future. Maria Lai, on the other hand, who passed away at 93 years old five years ago, appears rich in years and time in the eyes of memory, almost as eternal and atavistic as her Sardinia. At the center of this review is the most typical medium of her work that is, that thread that ’binds and connects’ in a way that is undoubtedly alive and that in fact often remains free and not yet sewn: among the various mythological references, she cannot but recall Penelope who weaves during the day and in the night unravels the threads.”

Maria Lai. The Thread and the Infinite can be visited during the opening hours of Palazzo Pitti: every day except Monday (closing day) from 8:15 am to 6:50 pm. Ticket for entrance to the Palace: 16 euros full, 8 euros reduced for EU citizens aged 18 to 25, free for under 18 of any nationality, disabled and accompanying persons, journalists, teachers and students of Architecture, Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Education Sciences, Bachelor of Arts and Philosophy degree with archaeological or historical-artistic degree addresses, Bachelor of Arts degree or corresponding courses in the member states of the European Union, Italian teachers with fixed-term and open-ended contracts in service at a public or equal school in the country. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Maria Lai Archive of Lanusei and the Art Station Foundation of Ulassai. Catalog published by Sillabe.

Image: Maria Lai, Geography (2008; fabric, wood, acrylic, string and thread; Lanusei, Maria Lai Archive)

Maria Lai stars in an exhibition at Palazzo Pitti

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