The exhibition Euforia Tomaso Binga at the Madre in Naples is a caress to those who know how to welcome. The artist manages to touch existential themes with an uncommon sensitivity, demonstrating an incisiveness and lucidity that are difficult even to digest. Her works, her words, the images and sounds with which she communicates stir something inside. They are punches to the stomach but at the same time cuddles. Wings of chrysalis and eyelash beats. Truly, one would want to silence everything else, these deafening violences between bombs and femicides, to still hope in the goodness of the human being.
The stage name originates primarily from the childish distortion of the name Bianca into Binga, which becomes the surname. Secondly, Tomaso “with only one ‘m’ due to the loss of a rib” is chosen to evoke the futurist Tommaso Marinetti. The latter was certainly essential in the field of visual poetry but also represented a version that was both “machista” and muscular.
The exhibition Euforia Tomaso Binga
The exhibition is the largest retrospective ever dedicated to her, celebrating 40 years of career with more than 120 works. Opened on April 18, it will be visitable until July 21. The curatorship is by Eva Fabbris with Daria Khan. The setup is not only elegant but also dynamic and functional to the understanding of Binga’s work, it was curated by Rio Grande.
As Eva Fabbris clearly states, “Tomaso Binga is a piece of Italian cultural history”. It is therefore urgent to make her work known, still little known. Especially, «at a time when new generations are rethinking gender themes and identity and linguistic definitions, and reinventing them with a complex and exciting freedom». She is undoubtedly an artist on whom much more attention is now being focused, even from collectors.
Tomaso Binga, stage name for Bianca Pucciarelli Menna, is an artist capable of marking the History of Italian Art. Born in Salerno in 1931, she is now an “adopted Roman.” She taught Theory and Method of Mass Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Frosinone. She works with Visual Poetry and Performance, carrying forward an artistic expression aligned with the Feminism of her colleagues Carla Lonzi, Carla Accardi…
The exhibition path between play and awareness
The artist neither pushes nor pulls, guides by hand or propels you with a lunar magnetic force. Upon entering, one can decide whether to go right or left in a cyclical path, a snake biting its tail. There are as many as 18 rooms, harmoniously conceived, that are distributed on the third floor of the museum. Iconic works are encountered, such as Oggi spose, 1977, in which the artist stages a wedding at the Roman gallery Campo D.
The invitation to the exhibition featured portraits of the brides. She dressed in white (from the marriage with her husband Filiberto in 1959). Always She with a masculine suit, tie, and sunglasses that interprets her intellectual version, Tomaso.
Other fundamental works are the series of Alphabets that originate in 1975 with Scrittura vivente. The artist uses her naked body to embody the letters of the alphabet but also the numbers. She emulates with the position of the head, limbs, and torso the shape of the letters, creating a hypnotic body language, which has nothing to do with the sexualization of the female body. On the contrary, it frees it from stereotypes, from objectification, making it a fluid instrument of re-semantization.
The works of Bianca-Binga are not forgotten
We highlight the works Grafici di storie d’amore (1972-1973) and Ti scrivo solo di domenica (1977-78). Additionally, the series of Dattilocodici inaugurated in 1978 and carried on continuously until 1982. They are created using a typewriter and striking two letters on the keyboard at the same time. This allows for the creation of symbols that evoke animals, natural forms, but also anthropomorphic ones… it uses letters, numbers, punctuation marks, special characters in an unprecedented and, I would dare to say, bull and bear genius.
Not to forget his performances like “Carta da Parato” (1976-77) but also his more recent works like Lacrime di sirena (2017-20) and the entire corpus of his poetic production.
https://www.madrenapoli.it/mostre/euforia-tomaso-binga/
She has collaborated for many years with art magazines such as Artribune, XIBT Contemporary, ArtApp, Insideart and Espoarte, preferring contemporary art in its many facets and media drifts.
