Ladder to the Moon

‘Ladder to the Moon’ is the title of a Georgia O’Keere painting from 1958 held in the Whitney Museum collection. It has been regarded as an abstract painting even though there is absolutely nothing abstract about it. A handmade wooden ladder lies suspended against a turquoise sky, stretching towards a half moon. In the background, just about noticeable, lies the landscape of Ghost Ranch, in New Mexico, and its Pedernal Mountains. The painting is very evocative, essential, primitive – almost mystical. It is said that in Pueblo culture, which O’Keefe studied in depth, the moon symbolises the link between the Pueblo and the ancestral cosmic forces.
It’s a powerful and ambitious vision. In a way, it symbolises the reaching towards something and the tool with which to do it. ‘Ladder to the Moon’ is also the title of a new exhibition at Monitor, an all-female show following the 2019 Rome show ‘If it is Untouchable it is not beautiful’. Lula Broglio, Marta Roberti, Giulia Mangoni and Eugenia Mussa are the protagonists of this new group exhibition. 
A greyhound in a blue coat crosses the deserted streets of central Turin with muffled footsteps, as the artist goes on one of her nightly walks. The dog walks alone, without an owner, but is sure-footed and confident to the point that it does not appear lost, but seems like some kind of epiphany, or a mysterious and magical apparition. Lula Broglio’s (b. 1993, Sanremo, Italy) Voom Voom opens the show with its surreal atmosphere, bright colours and the transference of a city which one starts to explore without belonging to it, and in which one feels “like in a building from the 1950s, with great, square glass chandeliers which you are afraid will fall on your head when you walk below them […] those buildings with elaborate entrances, welcoming and silent with that dusty, threadbare fitted-carpeting, which somehow has managed to maintain a bright and joyful colour” (Broglio, ATPDiary, 2020). 
In the same room, small, brilliant cameos by Eugenia Mussa (b. 1978, Maputo, Mozambique) provide a counterpoint to Broglio’s work. Mussa, originally from Mozambique and based in Lisbon, uses images from amateur films of varying provenance and periods - families in a pool, women at a parade, cheerleaders, and golf players – transforming them into scenes of gratifying tranquillity through her use of luminous colours. These bright   colours – which were fleetingly seen by the artist as a young child on TV or in magazines – contrasted with the greyness of life in a country tormented by war, symbolising the only means of communication with normality.
In the last seven years, Marta Roberti (b. 1977, Brescia, Italy) has travelled frequently to East Asia, residing principally in Taiwan. In her interviews, the artist often recalls having left the places of her childhood early on. Its landscapes and nature often find their way into her work, woven into an evocative Taiwanese atmosphere. Roberti probes the relationship between West and East, and in particular the way in which “Western identity is comprised of that which it believes is separate from itself: animals, nature – all that it deems exotic” (Roberti). In ‘Ladder to the Moon’, Roberti’s large drawings - her favourite medium - are on display. They feature female nudes in poses associated with yogic meditations and asanas, and inspired by the animal kingdom, which instigates this type of meditation in its pursuit of nirvana. 
 
Italo-Brazilian Giulia Mangoni (b. 1991, Isola del Liri, Italy) has returned to her hometown after a decade in Brazil, picking up on the bonds created “with stories and rural, feudal and post-industrial mythologies, using representative tools as a way to metabolise and negotiate these layered influences” (Mangoni). Here, her works reclaim ancient local iconographies through decorative statues realised by an artisan from the small town of Sora with whom the artist worked closely. The almost primitive images are coupled with a certain fleshiness inherent in South American painting visible in the brushstrokes, the chiselling of the outfits and the background. 
 
‘Ladder to the Moon’ can be interpreted as a partial, just about hinted at inquiry which is not in any way an exhaustive overview of current figurative painting nor of some of the artists who represent it. Artists belonging to different generations and from different cultural backgrounds. Artists seemingly very different in their pictorial technique and the genesis of their work, but brought together by a unique tension which spans the search for the other, from an ancestral and oneiric memory, or simply, belonging to the history of an unknown and distant past which is sublimated and made one’s own.
 
LULA BROGLIO (1993) SANREMO, Italy
PROJECTS 2017  Co-founder Club Pineta-Residency
SOLO EXHIBITION: 2017 Barche Solari, Spaziobuonasera, Turin, Italy 
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2020  Gli impermeabili, curated by Maria Chiara Valacchi, Owo Space, Milan, Italy; Alla mattina appena alzata, curated by Giada Olivotto and Camilla Paolino, One gee in  fog/ Lumpen station, Geneva, Switzerland; Straperetana, curated by Saverio Verini, Pereto, Italy; 2019  Group Show charity dinner, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; Sabaudade, Las Palmas, Lisbon, Portugal; Gifc drawings, The Hole, New York; 2018  Allenamento #1, Basis, Frankfurt, Germany; 2017  Free Stage Art Verona, Verona, Italy
 
EUGÉNIA MUSSA (1978) MAPUTO, Mozambique
SOLO EXHIBITIONS: 2019 Hubble Volume (with Tiago Baptista), Sindicato dos Pintores, Lisbon; 2017 Meridiano Pacífico,Galeria Quadrum, Lisbon; 2013 Retrospectiva, Espaço Arte Tranquilidade, Lisbon; 2012 Vacations & Expectations, Occupy Store, Lisbon
GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2019 The third Bank, AnoZero Bienal, Coimbra; 2018 Frente. Verso. Inverso – Arte Contemporânea dos Países de Língua Portuguesa nas Colecções em Portugal; Galeria UCCLA, Lisbon; 2017 VI Bienal de Culturas Lusofonas, Centro de Exposições de Odivelas; 2016 Não ha folha de Sala,; Galeria João Esteves Oliveira, Lisbon; Periplos, Portuguese Art Today, CAC, Málaga; 2015 Regresso ao Acervo, Galeria João Esteves Oliveira, Lisbon; 2014 Monólogos, Galeria João Esteves Oliveira, Lisbon; 2013 Interscape-Mnemonic City,Magma, London Desdobramento, Convento das Mónicas, Lisbon; Moderno e Contemporâneo + Eugénia Mussa, Galeria João Esteves Oliveira, Lisbon; Próximo Futuro, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; 2012 Fata Morgana, Ocupações Temporárias – Estrangeiros, Restaurante Cristal, Maputo; 2011 Concerto de Traços, Núcleo de Arte, Maputo; 2010 25o Aniversário do Banco de Mozambique, Maputo; A Vitalidade da Arte Moçambicana, Maputo 2009 Prémio Anteciparte 2009, Museu do Oriente, Lisbon; 2008 Bienal Europeia “On Europe”, Montijo; 2005 Vista Parcial, Lagar do Azeite, Oeiras
 
GIULIA MANGONI (1991) ISOLA DEL LIRI, Italy
2020 - Equilibristi, Esposizione in gruppo organizzata da Isolarte Officina Creativa, Galleria Pisani, Isola del Liri; Works on Paper, Studio 1608, Group Show curated by Sofia Vollmer Maduro, Palm Beach, Florida, USA; 2018 Telas, Panos e Papéis, Solo Show, escritório de arquitetura Mauricio Proshnik, Rio de Janeiro, BR; Indigestible Feast, Satellite Art Fair, Solo Show, Miami, USA; Arte/Musica/Natura, Museo Orto Botanico, Sapienza Università Roma, Italia; Anything Can Happen at Any Time, group show, SVA Flatiron Gallery, New York, USA; Sogni D’Acqua / Dreams of Water, Cinemateatro Isola del Liri, Italy; Pulp Works on Paper, All Saints Rectory, London, UK; Solo Show, Teatro Stabile Comunale, Isola del Liri, Italia; 2017 Aurore, through Cult Rise, Via Baccina 84, Roma, Italia; 2014 City & Guilds of London Art School BA Degree Show - Kennington, London, UK; 2013 In the Making, 1st and 2nd year Interim Exhibition, The Rag Factory, Brick Lane, London, UK; 2012 +44, 1st and 2nd year Interim Exhibition, St. Anselm’s Church and Arts Lav, Kennington, London, UK; 2011 YAP, (Young Artist’s Partnership) Pop Up exhibition, New King’s Road, London, UK; University College Falmouth Degree Show, Falmouth, UK
 
MARTA ROBERTI (1977) BRESCIA, Italy
2020 THERE IS AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, Fondazione Molino, Pastificio Cerere, Roma, curated By
Emanuela Pacella; NATURA HOMINI, double solo; Marta Roberti e Domingo Milella, Artissima, Galleria Doppelganger,2016 IL FONDO SALE ALLA SUPERFICIE (SENZA CESSARE DI ESSERE FONDO) Galleria Doppelgaenger, Bari,2015; SUPER_NATURAL, Department of Landscape Architecture, ,USR27, Chinese Culture University, Taipei,2015; BECOMING-ABJECT_SCARABOCCHIO, Kuandu Museum of art, Taipei, 2014; CORPI E GUSCI, Galleria Esposta, Verona, curated by Barbara Verzini, 2011; RIVELAZIONE DI UN MONDO, Galleria Area, Associazione Culturale Cidac, Brescia,2006.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION AND SCREENINGS: 2021I SAY I, Galleria nazionale di Arte Moderna, Roma; VISIONS IN THE MAKING, Italian Cultural Center, New Delhi, curated by Davide Quadrio and Myna Mukherjee; WALL-EYES, LOOKING AT ITALY AND AFRICA, Auditorium, Rome, curated by IlariaBernardi; THROUGH THE WILDNESS, Jing Lu Contemporary Art Gallery, Taipei; 2019 PARADISO, Office Project Room, Milano. WALL-EYES, LOOKING AT ITALY AND AFRICA, Keynes Art Mile, Johannesburg , curated by IlariaBernardi; FESTA FRANCA, FORARE IL TUBO, Cannara, curated by Cecilia Casorati and Vasco Forconi; WEAVING A WAY HOME,  BLIND DRAWING, Zoma Museum, curated by Meskerem Assequed and Italian Cultural Institute Addis Abeba, ETH; SOMETHING ELSE OFF BIENNAL CAIRO, Polyptoton, curated by Elena Giulia Abbiatici, ET; UNNATURE, curated by Manuela Tognoli, Label201, Rome, IT; THE HANGING GARDEN: curated by Christian Caliandro, SpazioCentotre, Palermo; GAOLIGONG ARTIST RESIDENCY FINAL SHOW, Baoshan, Yunnan, China; L’ARTE E’ IMITAZIONE DELLA NATURA, curated by Emanuela Evangelista, Botanical Garden, Rome, IT; 2017 LA SECONDA NOTTE DI QUIETE, curated by Christian Caliandro, arte fieraVerona,IT; ART TERMINAL, Banpong, curated by Jiandin,Tailand; STRAPERETANA, Pereto, curated by Saverio Verini, IT; DRAWING ROOM, Drawing fair, Madrid.2015 CUT INTO TIME - II, What About Art?, Mumbai (IN); 2014:WESEN,curated by Cristina Cohlmer, Meme art space, Hong foundation, Taipei (RDC);  VIDEOART, DOCU&CORTO, Macro, Rome; TRANS-MEDIA, TRANS-GENDER; curated by Valentina Valentini, Università La Sapienza, Roma; FILMIDEO International video art festival,Index Art Center,Newark, USA CINESTESIA ,International feminist video art festival, Varsity Center for the Arts in Carbondale Illinois; Usa 2012: VETRINALE, curated by Micol di Veroli,Roma REGENERATION, curated by Ilaria Gianni and Maria Alicata, MACRO, Musem of Contemporary ArtRome; CARTA BIANCA, cuarted by Sguardo Contemporaneo, Nero and Carla Subrizi, Museo di  illaCroce, Genova; DOUBLE ESPACE, cuaretd by Bruno di Marino, Galleria La Nuova Pesa,Rome; CORSO APERTO, Fondazione Ratti, curated by Andrea Lissoni and Cesare Pietroiusti, Como, IT; SHOWDESK, Fondazione Nomas, curated by Ilaria Gianni, Roma FINE ART ITALIAN ACCADEMIES PROJECT FOR VENICE BIENNAL, Arsenale nuovo, Biennale di Venezia 2011; 2010: IL RACCOLTO D’AUTUNNO è STATO ABBONDANTE, curated by Chiara Agnelloand Milovan Farronato, Via Farini, Careoff,Milano; RESERVOIR DOGS, curated by Andrea Bruciati, Galleria Comunale di Arte Moderna di Monfalcone, Udine; VIDEO IT , Being different is absolutely beatiful. Fondazione Merz. Torino; FESTARTE la violenza invisibile, La Pelanda, Macro, Roma IMMAGINARI VIDEO,curated by Martina Coletti, Gualdo Tadino, Perugia; INTERNATIONAL STREAMING FESTIVAL LE HAGUE LIVING SPACES, international videart festival, a cura di Abir Boukhari (Allartnow), Damascus, Siria; FIAV, festival d’images artistiques video, Ecole superiore des Beaux-Artes, Algeri; VIDEO REPORT 2006-7, curated by Andrea Bruciati and Andrea Lissoni, Galleria Comunale di arte contemporanea di Monfalcone MILANO IN DIGITALE, Fabbrica del vapore, Milano; SALON PRIMO: Fabbrica del vapore, Brera Fine Art Accademy, selected students exhibiton, Milano
 

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