On March 7th – 8th – 9th the gallery will be closed to the public for setting up.
“Women must always remember who they are and what they are capable of. They must not be afraid of the darkness that engulfs things, because that darkness frees a multitude of treasures.
That darkness that they, free, disheveled and proud, know as no man will ever know. ” (Virginia Woolf)
In the month in which “International Women’s Day” is celebrated, Galleria360 organizes an exhibition entitled “Arte Donna”, aimed at promoting awareness of the various female artistic expressions and celebrating the combination of Woman and Art.
The Opening Reception will take place on Friday 10th March 2023 at 7.30 pm in via Borgo Ognissanti 77/r, Florence.
During Opening Reception a welcome drink will be offered while Jazz musicians will play live.
In the art world, as in many other fields, for centuries women have been relegated to a supporting role, that is, to an important but not decisive role. Elevated to inspiring Muses, to angelic women, or as a reflection of the sentimental side of existence, women have inspired the minds of artists, who have thus given life to the most significant pages of art, literature, history, poetry. Forced into a historical role that sees her subordinate to man, oppressed and annihilated by social conventions, unable to express her own aspirations, however, women have constituted man’s motivational force, allowing him, as Virginia Woolf argues, to reflect “his figure at twice its natural size.” This is the striking case of Sybil, the most important female character in the well-known story by Oscar Wilde entitled “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, whose figure is flattened and crushed by the narcissism and aestheticism of its protagonist. Set in the Victorian era, the famous novel tells the story of Dorian Gray, a rich and extremely charming young man who falls in love with an actress, Sybil Vane. The girl has a pure and sincere love for the charming dandy, while Dorian is mainly attracted by her acting skills. Indeed, after the young woman loses her artistic talent, Dorian repudiates her by calling her “a woman without art and without genius”. Following this refusal, the girl will commit suicide out of desperation. Therefore Wilde’s pen outlines Sybil as a figure with a dull personality who becomes significant only in relation to Dorian. The name itself is profoundly evocative and recalls by assonance the sibyls, mythological figures whose predictions were characterized by such an ambiguity of meaning as to make interpretation useless. So Sybil is a highly symbolic character, whose purity of feeling and suicide represent an extreme act of love, thanks to which Dorian emerges paradoxically elevated, like the hero of a Greek tragedy. Sybil’s is just one of the many stories that tell us about complex issues such as female empowerment and gender stereotypes.
With the “Arte Donna” exhibition, Galleria360 therefore wants to pay homage to the entire female universe by celebrating their social and artistic ransom. Through the artworks of female artists selected from all over the world, the threads of different artistic narratives are intertwined, ranging from the intimate to the universal; they’re the fragments of stories capable of making the thickness and complexity of life break into art, from a privileged point of observation: that of the woman. “Arte Donna”, artistic review reminds us where women had to start from, not so long ago, to get to the present. The centuries-old challenge between social barriers and legitimate claims is in fact made up of small steps, the echo of which still spreads today.
Virginia Bazzechi Ganucci Cancellieri
