Over forty years after the presentation of Alfabetiere murale (Mural alphabet, 1976), the artist, performer, and visual poet Tomaso Binga, stage name of Bianca Pucciarelli (Salerno, 1931), returns to explore the relationships between body, speech, and gender identity in Alfabeto poetico monumentale (Poetic monumental alphabet, 2019), a project around which this volume, curated by Raffaella Perna, in collaboration with Frittelli Arte Contemporanea Gallery, revolves. Linked to the ideas developed by the feminist movements of the 1970s, Binga’s Alfabeto poetico monumentale celebrates the power of women to take back their language and bodies, to think of themselves, and represent themselves as active subjects of history through an alternative idea of a monument. The book offers a vast selection of works, from the Polistirolo (Polystyrenes) and the Scritture viventi (Living writings) of the 1970s to the recent AlphaSymbol and ArteNatura series, and is enriched by a selection of critical writings and archive photographs that sheds light on the artist’s early career.

Contents

Tomaso Binga, Body alphabets
Raffaella Perna

Anthology

Tomaso Binga: from object to image and the 'Lettere liberatorie'
Italo Mussa

Binga/Monselles
Anne Marie Sauzeau Boetti

Alfabetiere Murale
Tomaso Binga

Tomaso Binga
Romana Loda

Tomaso Binga
Romana Loda

Tomaso Binga
Mirella Bentivoglio

Il Dattilocodice
Italo Mussa

Tomaso Binga, The body of writing
Gillo Dorfles

Works on display

Biography