Luisa Rabbia Celebrates 10 Years of Collezione Maramotti with Two Exhibitions

Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia marks its tenth anniversary with two exhibitions featuring works by Italian artist Luisa Rabbia. The shows span from 2009 to 2017, tracing the evolution of her practice after moving to the United States in 2000. Highlights include her first work on canvas, first mural, and the painting "Love"—the first of a trilogy measuring 274×513 cm each, executed in colored pencil on acrylic on canvas. Rabbia's early works depict sleeping migrants as an escape from reality, while from 2011 onward, skin veins extend into landscapes, and faces are synthesized into fingerprints capturing individuality without gender or ethnicity. The exhibition also features a site-specific mural titled "Another Country," referencing James Baldwin's novel about a utopian place where sexual and ethnic differences are redefined. Rabbia explores themes of migration, empathy, and the journey from the internal body to the external landscape, aiming for universal subjects that resonate with each viewer's experience. The shows present a small retrospective of key moments selected by the Maramotti collection, highlighting shifts in her research from figurative to abstract, and from personal to collective narratives.