Italy's 79th Liberation Day anniversary

While Italians get ready to enjoy their 79th year of peace and freedom, somewhere not too far from us the winds of war are howling. April 25th represents a symbolic date on which we commemorate the liberation from over twenty years of fascist dictatorship, five years of world conflict and twenty months of civil war.

Liberation Day remains one of the highest moments in Italian history, a day that should inspire and unite the country. Alas, in 2024 Italy historical reality is being challenged by the right-wing government. Revisionism is ripe, the full horror of fascism gets airbrushed, its devastating impact is trivialised, and a nauseating wave of fascistic nostalgia is gaining momentum polluting public discourse and betraying the memory and the legacy of anti-fascism.

The celebration of April 25th is not empty rhetoric, it is to honour a founding moment of Italian democracy. Italy is an anti-fascist Republic by law, not by opinion. Long live the anti-fascist Republic, long live the Italian Constitution, long live April 25th.

#25aprile #liberationday #liberazione #italy #italia #antifascismo #resistence #bellaciao #blog #blogger #beyondthecanvasblog

21/04/1945 - Bolognese citizens take to the streets to celebrate the city's liberation with Polish soldiers.

In Memoriam: Faith Ringgold 1930-2024

“The stigma attached to having been in jail for a woman is a very threatening one because of the idea of how dare her not be a good wife and mother. She goes to jail because she is not able to play her traditional role as a woman.” - Faith Ringgold

Trailblazing American artist, activist and author Faith Ringgold died yesterday at 93. Born in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, she is perhaps better known for spearheading the revival of the African American story quilt (there's a beautiful one at the Barbican right now) in the late 1970s. Prior to that, she painted bold and unapologetic pictures that explored the themes of race and gender in America.

I saw this painting, Ringgold's last large-scale oil on canvas, at the Brooklyn Museum exactly a year, a month and day ago. What makes it truly unique is that it was commissioned to be displayed at Rikers Island women's prison facility, where I believed it remained until 2022. To empower the inmates to rebuild their lives after being released, Ringgold painted women engaging in typically male-dominated professions such as NBA stars, cops, bus drivers and doctors. I read she took inspiration from actual conversations had with the inmates about their aspirations, which makes it all the more poignant.

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Faith Ringgold

For The Women’s House, 1971

In memory of Richard Serra (1938-2024)

"When you look at my works, you don't remember an object. There remains an experience, a passage." - Richard Serra

Serra revolutionized sculpture forging solidly sinuous site-specific monumental structures, using industrial materials such as steel and lead. His work, scattered and celebrated globally, challenged and altered not just our perception of space and time, but also the way we interact with sculpture now he had made it accessible to us by doing away with pedestals. Importantly, his work could be touched and thus experienced viscerally.

My first encounter with Serra at MOMA some 20 years ago elicited a strong emotional response, a mix of unbridled enthusiasm and comfortable disorientation. The same thing happened again at the Guggenheim in Bilbao many years later. It is impossible not to gravitate towards Serra's towering sculptures, there is something profoundly intimidating yet alluring about their shape, texture and scale. When did rust suddenly become so attractive? Once inside them, I felt alone but also part of something, and I found myself lost in the purest sense, never wanting to be found, which for me is as close to the definition of engagement as it gets.

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Installation view of the exhibition "Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years" at MOMA, 2007

Photo Lorenz Kienzle