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As the second time speaker at FAR, Lea Vergine focuses her intervention on the figure of the artist within the social context. Taking up one of her best-known publications such as Body as Language, she describes the artists as those who "manage - and so do we - to get around the knots of life, to drift along the tangents of the question at stake which is basically always the same: the fear and trouble of living".
Quoting Mario Fortunato, curator of the Ratti Lectures’ cycle: "the idea was to address the theme of contemporary art, one rightly or wrongly considered too difficult or elitist, starting from keywords with a direct and clear meaning – fear and desire, in this case."
Then, Lea Vergine briefly addresses other pressing issues, such as the relationship between fashion and art, the globalization of art with particular reference to the East, and a critical analysis of the contemporary art system, starting from the interference between the figure of the art critic and that of the curator.

Curator and art critic of Corriere della Sera and Il Manifesto, Lea Vergine (1938, Naples - 2020, Milan) is the author of important publications about issues of contemporary art. Among them: Attraverso l'arte. Pratica politica / pagare il '68 (1976), L'arte ritrovata: alla ricerca dell'altra metà dell'avanguardia (1982), L'arte in gioco (1988), Gli ultimi eccentrici (1990), Body Art: the Body as Language (eng. ed. 2000), Art on the Cutting Edge: a Guide to Contemporary Movements (eng. ed. 2001), Ininterrotti transiti (2001), La vita, forse l'arte (2014), L'arte non faccenda di persone perbene. Conversazioni con Chiara Gatti (2016).
She curated numerous exhibitions, including L'altra metà dell'avanguardia (Milan, Rome, Stockholm, 1980-81), Geometrie dionisiache - in Italia oggi l'arte giovane (Milan 1988), Trash. Quando i rifiuti diventano arte (Trento, Rovereto, 1997-98).

Chiara Buss

Storia e storie tessili tra Asia e Europa dal 7° al 17° secolo

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