Birgit Jürgenssen Retrospective at GAMeC Bergamo

GAMeC Bergamo hosts the first major Italian retrospective of Austrian artist Birgit Jürgenssen (1949–2003), part of a wave rediscovering marginalized female artists. Curated by Natascha Burger, who has studied the Jürgenssen archive for a decade, the exhibition features over 150 works across six sections, from childhood drawings to late 1980s and 1990s pieces. The show previously appeared at Kunsthalle Tübingen (Germany) and will travel to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark. GAMeC director Lorenzo Giusti notes the exhibition aligns with the institution's 2019 programming themes of gender, identity, and migration. Jürgenssen's work explores identity, gender roles, and social constraints, using surrealist influences and self-portraiture. Her intimate feminism avoids overt provocation, employing irony and domestic imagery to critique societal expectations. Key works include 'Ich möchte hier raus!' (1976), 'Grembiule da cucina da casalinghe,' and 'Ich Bin' (1995), a chalkboard with a sponge symbolizing reversible identity.