Filippo Riniolo's Byzantine-Style Icons of 20th-Century Female Philosophers at Muta Torino

Italian artist Filippo Riniolo (born 1986, Milan) presents ten egg tempera and gold leaf paintings of influential 20th-century female philosophers at Muta Torino, rendered in the style of Byzantine and Orthodox icons. The subjects include Simone de Beauvoir, Naomi Klein, Hannah Arendt, Carla Lonzi (the only Italian), Angela Davis (identified by afro hair and raised fist), Simone Weil (blue work dress and rifle), and Edith Stein (monastic habit). Faces are omitted; recognition relies on symbolic attributes. Riniolo learned the technique—using egg tempera and gold leaf applied with agate stone—during a residency in Istanbul and has refined it over seven years. The installation mimics church altarpieces, with works hung obliquely; downstairs, Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, and Rosa Luxemburg are placed in a crypt-like space evoking prayer. The exhibition positions these icons not as an endpoint but as a starting point for broader engagement with the past to inform the present.