The feminine according to Margherita Manzelli at the Pecci Center in Prato

The Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato presents from December 14, 2024 to May 11, 2025, the exhibition Margherita Manzelli. Le signorine, curated by Stefano Collicelli Cagol. The exhibition project, in which Intesa Sanpaolo is a partner, brings together a selection of paintings made by Margherita Manzelli (Ravenna, 1968) from the 1990s to the present, along with a series of drawings and a nucleus of works made especially for this exhibition, one of which finds inspiration in the Cathedral of Santo Stefano, the cathedral of the city of Prato. The title is inspired by the artist’s way of referring to the female characters that have always populated his works. Independent, proud, timeless, androgynous, Manzelli’s ladies take the stage and decide their own modes and forms of representation, defying atavistic conventions and claiming their independence from family ties. From the earliest works, the artist’s practice is polarized around the analysis of three components: painting, actions and writing.

The desire to connect these three areas of interest, seemingly so distant, has allowed Manzelli to develop a unique research in Italy. Having moved to Milan after studying in Ravenna, the artist came to national and international attention as early as the 1990s, a decade that looked with suspicion on the return of painting after the indigestion of the 1980s. In her subjects, the woman’s body becomes the pretext for throwing herself headlong into pictorial experimentation, and for indifferently forcing the boundaries between the genres proper to the medium’s tradition; ultimately, for playing with the ambiguity of the artist’s condition, suspended between the need to expose herself by putting her work into circulation and the need to portray herself, in order to protect her own human dimension. Hypervigilant and exanguine, nude or half-naked, they seem ready for dissection or defiance of convention; held back by the thin barrier of their own skin and with a gaze that overflows and pierces the beholder, these women overturn the axioms of the representation of the female body in the history of art, designed for the male eye.

In the paintings, the ladies are placed within an abstract spatiality, consisting of large backgrounds with geometric patterns, floral subjects, recalling the patterns of imaginary or real fabrics or spaces regulated by colored vertical bands. Central to Manzelli’s works is the relationship between subject and background, maintained in a continuous tension whereby the main subject seems to emerge, and at the same time merge, with the context in which it is placed. In this exercise of perception, with the colors of the background coming to compose the somatic features of the painted young ladies, Manzelli seduces the viewer. The head is the element from which the artist for more than 30 years has begun his research and through which the vision that from time to time gives voice to his obsessions takes shape.

In the drawings presented in the exhibition, the head emerges from a white field, as is often the case in Manzelli’s works on paper. With her works, Manzelli seems to give voice to that awareness of the fragility and resilience of human beings experienced globally with the most recent pandemic. Margherita Manzelli. Le signorine is part of Toscana al Centro’s annual programming, along with the exhibitions Louis Fratino. Satura, until Feb. 2, 2025),and Peter Hujar. Actions and Portraits/Travels in Italy, Dec. 14, 2024 to May 11, 2025, which opens concurrently. Thanks to ValeriaNapoleoneXXArtists (VNXXA) for support in the realization of this project. ValeriaNapoleoneXXArtists (VNXXA) is a dynamic initiative dedicated to empowering women artists with strong connections to the collection. This ongoing effort focuses on projects critical to the practice of women artists, offering solid support for the creation of artworks, publications, exhibitions, and other significant initiatives.

Notes on the artist

Margherita Manzelli studied in the 1980s at the Ravenna Academy and then moved to Milan. Her research has revolved around painting, drawing, writing and actions for more than 30 years. Her female figures are iconic of a pictorial language that through the years has remained constant in its desire to delve into her own obsessions, as also witnessed by the poems and texts produced and the actions performed. He has participated in several group exhibitions in institutions such as ICA, London; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Whitechapel Gallery; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; La Biennale di Venezia; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Castello di Rivoli - Museum of Contemporary Art; XXV Biennale di San Paolo; Palazzo Grassi, Venice. His solo exhibitions have been held at MAXXI - Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; Castello di Rivoli; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Art Institute of Chicago; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia; Galleria Civica di Trento.

The feminine according to Margherita Manzelli at the Pecci Center in Prato

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