Virginia Ryan's EVEN, SOMETIMES Confronts Menstrual Blood and Male Tears at Spazio HASITA Milan

Opening on 17 October at Spazio HASITA in Milan, Virginia Ryan's exhibition EVEN, SOMETIMES, curated by Matteo Pacini, pairs two bodies of work addressing taboos long policed by social convention: menstrual blood and male crying. The Australian artist's Even Goddesses Bleed Sometimes brings painting, drawing and embroidery together to restore visibility to a dimension of the female body that culture has tied to shame, a research shaped by her engagement with India and traditions in which menstrual blood carries complex meanings between the sacred and the impure. Embroidery holds a specific place in the project: Ryan first experimented with cross-stitch in Trevi, Umbria, before developing, during an artist residency in Kerala, a collaboration with groups of embroiderers in Calicut. The second project, Even Men Cry Sometimes, grew from observing the tears of Christ in Benedetto Bonfigli's 1495 painting Cristo Re dei Re. Ryan asked men close to her — friends and acquaintances in different parts of the world — to write on a postcard about the last time they cried. Conceived as a work in progress, the project will keep accepting new testimonies. The exhibition is on view at Spazio HASITA, Milan.