Carla Accardi's great retrospective at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni

Finally a beautiful exhibition to see in this space that I have always thought of as the Roman Beaubourg, curated by Daniela Lancioni and Paola Bonani and until 9 June 2024.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth, the exhibition of Carla Accardi (Trapani 1924-2014) takes on an important and symbolic character. First because she is one of the best known and most appreciated Italian women artists on an international level, then because she was a Marxist and a feminist who has always fought for civil rights, including those of workers.

She was part of the famous group called “Forma 1” (1947) together with her husband, the artist Antonio Sanfilippo, and Pietro Consagra, Mino Guerrini, Ugo attardi, Achille Perilli, Giulio Turcato and Piero Dorazio, with the aim of making abstract painting was worth the same as figurative painting which was instead accepted by the art world.

Carla was a cheerful woman and always available for dialogue. She has made herself known all over the world and this is why everyone knows her, having had exhibitions from New York to Lima, from Paris to Buenos Aires, from Lausanne to Frankfurt.

I met her personally towards the end of the 1980s at the home of another important figure in Italian history, the partisan Carla Capponi in her house in via dei serpenti. Even on that day we talked about women, their role in society, the PCI and Renato Guttuso who represented the crusader of figurative painting in art.

But let's go back to the exhibition where in the first room you will even find his figurative works from when he was at the Palermo academy. You will also find the manifesto of “Female Rivolta” of which she was proudly part together with Elvira Banotti and Carla Lonzi.

There are also display cases with works from his private collection of artist friends including Luigi Ontani, Francesco Impellizzeri and Marco Tirelli.

In the other rooms, works are exhibited that go back to when he was part of the “Forma 1” group, passing first through environmental painting, then through materialless painting, up to his return to painting in the 80s and in the great works of the 90s and 2000s. the room she set up at the 1998 Venice Biennale was even rebuilt and there are over one hundred works with many of her other experiments both in black and white and in color and with the sicofoil material the latter used for a long time.

The pleasant exhibition itinerary will bring you closer and closer to his character, his geometries, his colors, his oddities which will intrigue you more and more. In fact, workshops for children, meetings and themed conferences are also planned. An exhibition absolutely not to be missed.

Carla Accardi solo exhibition entitled “Secret Alphabets” Galleria Lombardi via di Monte Giordano, 40 until 20 April 2024

If you liked the exhibition at the PdE and want to see 25 other works by Carla Accardi while also thinking about purchasing one to put in your home to admire every day, take a trip to the historic Lombardi Gallery. One of the most serious in Rome specializing in modern and contemporary art.

The pleasure of walking around observing the works on display starting from the 1950s and extending up to 2000 is priceless. Here too you will find the initial works that concern the sign, those created with casein tempera, vinyl dyes, those with sicofoil up to the large canvases and the installations of recent years that burst with color and fascinate us with the play of shapes and the colors.

Also very beautiful is the catalog with text by Guglielmo Gigliotti in which he recalls the ways in which the artist painted, that is, standing on the ground in front of large sheets of paper or climbing with a ladder onto large canvases or crossing linen or sicofoil surfaces.

The exhibition is curated by Lorenzo and his father Enrico Lombardi who, being a family gallery owner, has known, since he was a child, the greatest artists in Rome and beyond. If you meet him during your visit you can have a word with him. He is a lovely person, who knows the history of art well, and he will absolutely enjoy a discussion with you.

Good vision.

(Photo credit: Fabio Milani)