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"I take a traditional icon, painted by a male painter, marvellous, great, who saw his model as an object. Then I completely reverse the set-up. I remove the background, so I remove it from its time, I bring it into the contemporary world. I work on the gaze. I work on the face, the foreground. There is only her. Her, and her eyes."
- Mariella BETTINESCHI
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Feminist artist Mariella BETTINESCHI presents her series 'The Next Era’, which served as the spectacular setting of Dior’s A/W 2022 collection, presented in Paris this month. In the same way that the French maison used technology to reimagine the relationship between body and garment, Bettineschi re-interprets iconic portraits of Renaissance women in a contemporary key – rendered in black and white, with two pairs of eyes that pierce bewildered viewers attracted by their absolute beauty and integrity.
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Mariella BETTINESCHI
Scuola di Fontainebleau [School of Fontainebleau], 2016Digital paintings on plexiglass120 x 80 x 2 cm eachEdition of 3 + 2 APs€ 18,000.00 + APPLICABLE TAXES
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Photo by Kristen Pelou
At the unveiling of the A/W 22 collection by Maria Grazia Chiuri, gilded frames showcased Bettineschi’s works, tessellated around the walls of the show space – which resembled a traditional art gallery or the walls of a plush private residence – with multiple sets of eyes. Their cut up, stacked eyes question the judgment that has conditioned – and still conditions – women past and present. The gaze is reversed to suggest another reading of art history.
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“We all have this perception of art presented in this way, with the gold frames, classical let’s say. But here there’s a twist. It’s feminist activism, placed in the context of classical art.”
- Paola Ugolini, curator
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Mariella BETTINESCHI
Leonardo, Annunciazione [Leonardo, Annunciation], 2019Digital painting on plexiglassEach: 120 x 80 x 2 cm
Edition of 3 + 2 APs€ 18,000.00 + APPLICABLE TAXES
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Photo by Andrea Cenetiempo
Mariella BETTINESCHI (b. 1948) has probed, through different methods and materials, the possible relationships with reality, focusing particular attention to women’s condition, through a multidisciplinary approach dedicated to painting, sculpture, architecture. Photography and digital image have played a crucial role for her, thanks to their possibility of manipulation.
After finishing art school in 1970, she graduated from the Giacomo Carrara Academy of Fine Arts in Bergamo. In 1988 she participated in the 43rd Edition of the Venice Biennale, and one year later she moved to Berlin, where she worked until 1995. She currently lives and works in Bergamo, Italy.