Maria Morganti's Retrospective at GAM Torino: Painting as Mental Archive

A major retrospective of Maria Morganti (born Milan, 1965) is on view at GAM Torino, curated by Elena Volpato. The exhibition translates the artist's studio into the museum space, culminating in a performance (Ostensione #1) during the opening where two young artists hung paintings from a large shelf (Luogogesto) according to a precise score. The show includes photographic installations, figurative drawings from Morganti's youth, and a shelf of over one hundred diaries from her personal library. Critic Luca Bertolo recounts a personal epiphany at a 2024 exhibition at Galleria de' Foscherari in Bologna, curated by Enrico Camprini, where he realized Morganti's painting is not to be looked at as traditional painting but as a mental operation. He compares her colors to gold ground in medieval sacred painting—surfaces that are both present and elsewhere. Morganti's practice is deeply processual, involving daily gestures, repetition, and diary-keeping, all subsumed into her 'archive of time,' a mental and technological entity that generates stories. The article reflects on the paradox of a mental operation inextricably tied to physical materials and gestures.