Renata Rampazzi's anger against discrimination against women. The exhibition in Rome

The Carlo Bilotti Museum in Rome is hosting, from September 17, 2020 to January 10, 2021, the exhibition CRUOR, a solo show by Renata Rampazzi (Turin, 1948), curated by Claudio Strinati: the show traces the battle that the artist has been waging since the 1970s for women’s equality and their emancipation. Promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Crescita culturale - Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, the exhibition is organized by Renata Rampazzi and her studio. The initiative is part of Romarama, the cultural events program of Roma Capitale. Museum services curated by Zètema Progetto Cultura.

The theme of the exhibition is that of blood, linked to violence against women. On display are 14 paintings, 46 small canvases, preparatory studies for the large installation composed of 36 gauzes, and a video: works that, as Claudio Strinati writes in the catalog, on the one hand are closely connected with a very ancient and very rich tradition, but on the other are completely independent of any historical conditioning; on the contrary, they descend on our contemporaneity with remarkable strength and communicative power to become an instrument of real intellectual and moral struggle in and of themselves.

As a young artist in 1970s Italy, Renata Rampazzi has always felt the need to translate the force of denunciation against gender discrimination into her paintings. Driven by impatience with bourgeois hypocrisy and the urgency of expressing herself, the artist poured her anger, discomfort, and impatience onto her canvases without ever blurring into the obscene and obvious, but finding a pulsating and living force in the most provocative color of all: red. With few strokes, but rich in signifier and meaning, the artist manages to suggest, evoke, represent while remaining in the abstract. His works, covering a time span from 1977 to 2020, are declined in Compositions, Wounds, Red Suspensions, Lacerations until he arrives at the 2018 installation Cruor, made with the collaboration of set designer Leila Fteita exhibited for the first time at the Fondazione Cini in Venice, which visually and experientially summarizes the others. Mixing earths and pigments, Renata Rampazzi painted some 30 gauzes, symbolic of the dressings of wounds suffered by women, in a variation of reds, from the softest to the most vivid.

Hanging from the ceiling on staggered planes, like a kind of stage curtains, these long 4x1-meter drapes invite the visitor to enter an emotional labyrinth, in which one penetrates the suffering and deprivation of one’s identity due to violence, thanks also to the engaging atmosphere created by the music of Minassian, Ligeti and Gerbarec. In the artist’s intent, the exhibition is meant to be a journey in which the visitor should feel physically involved, an emotional journey that does not so much illustrate as evoke in a high moral and intellectual tension the tremendous phenomenon of violence against women, told not in an overt way but nevertheless evident and urgent, thanks to the color red present on all the works on display.

A panel discussion is also planned that will address the issue of violence against women from different perspectives and experiences. Discussing this topic will be Dacia Maraini, writer; Luciana Castellina, politician; Chiara Valentini, journalist and essayist Margarethe Von Trotta, director; Francesca Medioli, historian; Massimo Ammanniti, psychoanalyst; and Renata Rampazzi herself. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog (Edizioni Sabinae, bilingual Italian, English) with texts by Dacia Maraini, Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli and Claudio Strinati and a testimonial by the artist. Part of the proceeds from sales of the catalog will be donated to the Differenza Donna Association.

Here are the hours. June through September, Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 7 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. October through May, Tuesday through Friday and holidays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free admission with free and compulsory reservations at 060608. For information you can visit the Bilotti Museum website.

Image: Renata Rampazzi, Composition (1978; oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm).

Renata Rampazzi's anger against discrimination against women. The exhibition in Rome

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.