Francisco Tropa's 'Miss America' Transforms Bologna Bank into Linen-Filled Installation

Simone Menegoi has returned as artistic director of Banca di Bologna's exhibition space, inaugurating his tenure with 'Miss America,' the first Italian solo show of Portuguese artist Francisco Tropa (born 1968, Lisbon). The exhibition features two site-specific installations: 'Lanterna,' a variation of a cycle first prototyped in 1993 and shown at the 2011 Venice Biennale, and the entirely new 'Miss America,' which fills the Sala Convegni of Palazzo De' Toschi with rows of bronze laundry lines and silk-screened signs. Four times daily, performers slowly hang and remove sheets in choreographed gestures, activating the work. Tropa's practice engages with mimesis and trompe l'oeil, using bronze to mimic bamboo and clothespins, and exploring the boundary between reality and representation. The title 'Miss America' carries political connotations, alluding to beauty pageants and a missing America of civil rights. Menegoi, who directed ArteFiera for seven years, swapped roles with Davide Ferri, who now leads the fair. Menegoi also curated 'Fragmented Subjectivity' at the curated by 2025 festival in Vienna and co-curated 'CC' by Michael Smith at Palazzo Bentivoglio. He expressed interest in bringing middle-career artists Kenji Ide, Sophie Thun, and Leah Ke Yi to Italy, and named the Vienna Secession as an institution he would like to collaborate with. The exhibition runs at Banca di Bologna, with a catalogue forthcoming.