12 OCTOBER 2024 — 2 MARCH 2025
THURSDAY-SUNDAY 14.00-18.00
Chiara Ventura
Love Handles
CURATED BY Angel Moya Garcia
«Now I no longer scream,/ reached the end of my voice,/ even the beatings are over/ and so finally is my imprisonment / in this cell of the deaf, dumb and blind,/ I die in a crippled country,/ that little by little every day/ moves my stool…/ hanged by my vocal cords,/ I stopped complaining»
As part of the 2024 programme, the Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio, focused on the concept of the voice in the various meanings and interpretations of the term, presents the exhibition Le maniglie dell’amore by Chiara Ventura (Verona, 1997) curated by Angel Moya Garcia. The exhibition features 110 handles, one for each femicide recorded in Italy over the last year, installed on a wall simulating the image of a cemetery. 110 burial niches, 110 silenced bodies, 110 descriptions of stories without a voice. 110 victims of femicide for economic reasons, unaccepted relationship breakups, attempts at possession, despair due to trivial reasons, ableism, toxic dynamics and above all jealousies that lead to stalking, tailing, revenge porn, oppression, mistreatment, physical and verbal aggression, domestic violence and, finally, murder.
We know that femicide represents a predominant part of the murders of women, with the characteristic that they peak in a family environment or within unstable sentimental relationships. It is known that the term femicide, in its commonly understood meaning, is a neologism that can be traced back to the 90s, to qualify gender-based homicides, in which the woman is the victim "because she is a woman". At a time when World Health Organisation data was not yet known, which shows that the leading cause in the world of the killing of women between 16 and 44 years old is by people known to them, it was considered important to give a name to this type of homicide in order to make the phenomenon "visible". The Italian legal system does not provide for the hypothesis of femicide as an autonomous crime, but only as an aggravating circumstance. The recent legislation (decree-law 14 August 2013, no. 93 passed into law 15 October 2013, no. 119: so called "law against femicide"), which also includes among its motives that of responding to the "succession of events of very serious brutality against women and the resulting social alarm", does not define the femicide, but regulates and reinforces the action aimed at combatting and preventing gender violence that includes within it various categories of criminal conduct (in addition to murder, mistreatment, stalking, beatings, injuries, …) common to the context and the passive subject to which they are directed. As for femicide, which takes on (or contains within itself) the cultural concept of gender violence, it is an expression that describes the phenomenon with reference to its empirical-criminological bases, highlighting the position or role of the perpetrator.
Chiara Ventura’s research is focused precisely on the dynamics of couples and the criticism of patriarchy that finds a form of transfeminist activism through the practice of “plurale” (an osmotic collective founded in 2020 that today includes Leonardo Avesani and Ventura herself as activators). The artist explores the infinite possibilities of the body, focuses on the margins and seeks other ways of seeing the world, building counter-narratives.
In this sense, the exhibition aims to describe death as the last obvious and undeniable manifestation of gender violence, exerted on and through the body. It does so by decontextualizing the handle, a common object, linked to the domestic sphere, to intimacy and to everyday life, underlining exactly how in everyday life, in what we cannot always see (metaphorically and not – inside the home), the patriarchal behaviours and dynamics are hidden that constitute the bases and structures for the extreme gestures of which today, daily, we receive news.
Chiara Ventura (Verona, 1997) is a visual artist and performer. Her work is genuinely existential, where biography becomes the cipher. The paintings, always on the boundary between figuration and abstraction, embody the macro-themes of plastic, conceptual and performative works. The analysis of the body, the relationships and reactions that it has with the psyche, emotions and the Other, was the starting point for the development of a practice, predominantly performative, where the uncomfortable, unprotected point, for those that do and for those that watch, is at the centre of attention. Ventura investigates and denounces the most subtle aspects of the forms of violence present in contemporary times and is interested in the political aspects of human behaviour. In 2020 she co-founded plurale, a concept that takes shape in collective art making, a dynamic in which the individual artist merges into a common perspective, a Zen practice of ego decentralisation. In 2022, plurale published the Manifesto Gesto empatico (Empathetic Act) and implemented a transfeminist practice, observing sexuality and pleasure as political spaces. In addition, she is interested in youth culture and studies in particular the Italian Trap phenomenon, analysing the socio-cultural issues related to the new generations. Chiara Ventura has created performances and exhibited at museums, foundations, galleries, independent spaces including MART – Galleria Civica di Trento (Trento), Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa (Venice), Viafarini (Milan), Villa Rondinelli (Fiesole), Galleria ME Vannucci (Pistoia), TAI – Tuscan Art Industry (Prato), GATE26A (Modena), Spazio In Situ (Rome), Spazio Cordis (Verona).
Ticket price
Opening Love Handles (12 October)
free admission
Exhibition and permanent installations fee
Thursday Friday 2.00-6.00PM, Saturday-Sunday 3.00-7.00PM, or by appointment: € 5,00
Contacts and reservations
SPE Ticket Office - Performance and Exhibition Space
tel. +39 0583 971125
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Associazione Culturale Dello Scompiglio
Via di Vorno, 67 – Vorno, Capannori (LU) Italy
tel. +39 0583 971475
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