ExhibitionMarch 4, 2022
Poems that I will never show. Chiara Fumai 2007-2017
La Casa Encendida presents until May 1, the first retrospective dedicated to Italian artist Chiara Fumai (Rome, 1978 - Bari, 2017). "Poems I will never show. Chiara Fumai 2007-2017" curated by Milovan Farronato and Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, in which they delve into her work with performative languages and feminist aesthetics of the 21st century.
The exhibition presents a selection of works that translate and materialize the elusive performances that Chiara Fumai willingly and systematically refused to document. She did not allow herself to be victimized, belittled, or circumscribed to the condition of a woman artist. In many of her performative practices, she adopted different identities to highlight narratives deliberately forgotten or discarded by patriarchal history, always focusing on gender research. Figures such as the medium Eusapia Palladino, the theosophist Madame Blavatsky, the feminist writer Carla Lonzi, the bearded woman Annie Jones, the anarchist Valerie Solanas, or the terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, among others. That Fumai revisited through methods commonly associated with the counterculture such as psychic activity, illusionism, freak shows, self-hypnosis, or oral tradition. By appropriating their characters, Fumai ends up identifying with them, bringing their stories to light, and conveying profound reflections on language and the fragmentation of identity.
The exhibition results from the research of the artist's legacy, showing a wide selection of installations, collages, videos, drawings, and photography. The exhibition's title has its origin in an unfinished work, Fumai's last self-portrait, where a puppet appears wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Poems I will never publish." She refers to those identities she adopted because she never composed poems; instead, she channeled the words of others, women who deserve historical recognition.
This exhibition is the result of the collaboration of several European institutions: Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, La Loge and La Casa Encendida.
The exhibition presents a selection of works that translate and materialize the elusive performances that Chiara Fumai willingly and systematically refused to document. She did not allow herself to be victimized, belittled, or circumscribed to the condition of a woman artist. In many of her performative practices, she adopted different identities to highlight narratives deliberately forgotten or discarded by patriarchal history, always focusing on gender research. Figures such as the medium Eusapia Palladino, the theosophist Madame Blavatsky, the feminist writer Carla Lonzi, the bearded woman Annie Jones, the anarchist Valerie Solanas, or the terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, among others. That Fumai revisited through methods commonly associated with the counterculture such as psychic activity, illusionism, freak shows, self-hypnosis, or oral tradition. By appropriating their characters, Fumai ends up identifying with them, bringing their stories to light, and conveying profound reflections on language and the fragmentation of identity.
The exhibition results from the research of the artist's legacy, showing a wide selection of installations, collages, videos, drawings, and photography. The exhibition's title has its origin in an unfinished work, Fumai's last self-portrait, where a puppet appears wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Poems I will never publish." She refers to those identities she adopted because she never composed poems; instead, she channeled the words of others, women who deserve historical recognition.
This exhibition is the result of the collaboration of several European institutions: Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, La Loge and La Casa Encendida.
