Nuoro celebrates Maria Lai, the artist-philosopher

The exhibition on Maria Lai reveals the artist’s journey in seventy works

Friday 10 June 2022 will be inaugurated in Nuoro at Spazio Ilisso the exhibition dedicated to Maria Lai, which can be visited until November 27th, traces about 40 years of Maria Lai’s artistic research through seventy masterpieces that allow you to appreciate the development of her highly personal visual language. Her works come from:

Archivio Maria Lai;
Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte di Ulassai;
 Man di Nuoro;
Musei Civici di Cagliari;
Fondazione di Sardegna;
Magazzino Italian Art Foundation di New York;
and from private collections throughout Italy.


Maria Lai, 1955, foto Marianne Sin-Pfältzer

Maria Lai international artist but deeply Sardinian

Maria Lai was born in Ulassai in 1919. Although she lived there very little, the stories and legends together with the material culture and nature of this small town in Ogliastra have been a constant source of suggestions for her.
In her long artistic career he will combine European and American conceptualism with Sardinian folk art, the background of her homeland with her being a universal artist.


La mappa di Colombo, 1983, polimaterico, 122 x 170 cm, Ulassai, Stazione dell’Arte. Courtesy©Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2022

The exhibition

Her training began in Rome at the Art School, a pupil of the sculptor Marino Mazzacurati, and continued in Venice at the Academy of Fine Arts with the great sculptor Arturo Martini. In her artistic career she has the opportunity to meet and deal with different personalities not only from the art world: the writers G. Dessì and Salvatore Cambosu will be important reference figures for her and from the meeting with the German photographer Marianne Sin-Pfältzer an interesting artistic collaboration.

The exhibition traces his artistic experiences starting from the multi-material compositions of the 60s to then move on to the famous “Sewn canvases”, perhaps his best known works, to be followed by the “Sewn books”, the sculpture of “Pupi di pane” and his “Geographies”, which tell of cosmic spaces and journeys into infinity. Finally, the journey ends with videos and photos documenting the choral action of “Binding to the mountain”, the forerunner of relational art that will be theorized over 15 years later.

Why Nuoro

We have already written about the fact that Nuoro and the surrounding areas are considered among the richest territories of Sardinia in cultural terms. This splendid exhibition will be one more reason to visit the city, and if you wish, stay in our Residence Hotel Grandi Magazzini, in the city center and just 8 minutes walk from the museum.

Share

On Friday 10 June the exhibition dedicated to Maria Lai, one of the major artist-philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century, will be inaugurated at the Ilisso Space.

Prenota

Iscrizione alla Newsletter

By submitting this request, I confirm to have read the privacy statement and agree that my data will be processed in order to provide the requested service. See privacy information

Book Now

Subscribe to the newsletter

By submitting this request, I confirm to have read the privacy statement and agree that my data will be processed in order to provide the requested service. See privacy information