Centro Pecci Honors Lara-Vinca Masini with Centenary Exhibition

Key facts

• Lara-Vinca Masini was born in Florence on April 4, 1923, and died in the same city on January 9, 2021.
• In 2010, she donated her archive of about 30,000 volumes and 200,000 items to the Centro Pecci, then directed by Marco Bazzini.
• The exhibition 'La memoria del futuro' is curated by Stefano Pezzato, head of collections and archives at the Centro Pecci.
• The scientific committee includes Stefano Collicelli Cagol, Michele Di Sivo, Simone Mangani, Maria Grazia Messina, Elena Pianea, Alessandro Poli, Carlo Sisi, and Diana Toccafondi.
• Masini's 1980 exhibition 'Umanesimo/Disumanesimo nell'arte europea 1890/1980' featured site-specific works in Florence's historic center by artists including Pier Paolo Calzolari, Sandro Chia, Giuseppe Chiari, Luciano Fabro, Haus-Rucker-Co, Hans Hollein, Rebecca Horn, Fabio Mauri, Hermann Nitsch, and Wolf Vostell.
• In the 1980s, Masini directed the Museo Progressivo d'Arte Contemporanea di Livorno with Vittorio Fagone and organized the first Biennale of Contemporary Art in Livorno.
• In 1978, she participated in the Italian Commission for Visual Arts and Architecture at the Venice Biennale with Enrico Crispolti.
• She won the Premio dei Lincei per la Critica in 1986.
• In June 2014, a group of colleagues requested the Bacchelli Law annuity (€24,000 per year) for Masini due to her financial difficulties, but it was denied; the Tuscany region and 28 intellectuals, including Tomaso Montanari, Adolfo Natalini, and Alberto Breschi, supported the appeal.
• Key publications include 'Arte Contemporanea. La linea dell’unicità' (1989), 'Dizionario del fare arte contemporaneo' (1992), and 'L’arte del Novecento. Dall’Espressionismo al Multimediale'.