The title of the exhibition Lotta Poetica – Il messaggio politico nella Poesia Visiva 1965-1978 is freely inspired by the renowned magazine founded by Sarenco and Paul De Vree in 1971, privileged place of debate and cultural dialogue outside of official channels in those years.
Held at Fondazione dei Monti Uniti di Foggia, Lotta Poetica – Il messaggio politico nella Poesia Visiva 1965-1978 exhibits the works of artists who engaged in opposing the emerging consumer society between the 1960s and 1970s. Having abandoned traditional means of communication and broken down the barriers between different genres, the artists came up with a new language. This language, based on the verb and the image, found its definition in Visual Poetry, a neo-avant-garde born within the Florentine Group 70, founded by Lamberto Pignotti and Eugenio Miccini. Collages, drawings, documents, magazines, posters and artist’s books therefore tell the story of militant art, creating unprecedented viewpoints from which to observe the interpenetration of image, verbal sign and graphic sign.
About fifty works are present, created by Nanni Balestrini, Ketty La Rocca, Lucia Marcucci, Lamberto Pignotti, Sarenco, Mirella Bentivoglio, Luciano Ori and Michele Perfetti. Works capable of narrating the subversive charge of the new linguistic code, deployed on the front line to redeem the subordinate condition of women, to support social contestations.
Alongside the verbo-visual works created in the 1960s and 1970s is the video Gesti di relazione, made especially for the exhibition by the emerging artist Grossi Maglioni. In the work, the screen becomes a device for meditating on the categories struggle/war.
