Rosaria Matarese Retrospective at Museo FRaC Baronissi

Rosaria Matarese, recipient of the 66th Bugatti Segantini Career Prize on June 7, is the subject of a retrospective curated by Massimo Bignardi at Museo FRaC Baronissi in Salerno. The exhibition traces her career from informal painting experiments in the early 1960s to recent drawing-sculptures she has been working on since 2021. Matarese was a member of the Linea Sud group alongside Mario Persico, Luciano Caruso, and Enrico Bugli, and her work is deeply connected to the artistic and cultural context of Campania in the second half of the 20th century. The show includes key works such as 'In mille culture è nato il 103' (1965), 'Di una pompa per il cuore' (1966), and the walkable sculpture 'Eliminate tutti i possibili' (1965). Later works like 'È guerra' (2003), 'Io nel Duemilaunidici' (2011), and 'Crocifissione' (2013) demonstrate her ongoing engagement with urban debris and social critique. Pasquale Ruocco, director of Museo FRaC, describes her use of mannequins, dolls, wood fragments, and rusted iron as tools for social denunciation. The exhibition also features recent, previously unseen drawing-sculptures that extend her graphic practice into space.