Recalling Rome: Maria Lai at MAXXI
In December 2019, I returned to Rome to see some things I had missed on an earlier visit. I love Rome! We walked and walked through deluges of rain, we toured the Coliseum under a full moon with a spectacular light show, and of course, filled ourselves with pasta and truffles to last through the year!
One day filled me to my creative brim: a visit to the new MAXXI to see “Holding the Sun by the Hand.” I was excited to see that Maria Lai had made cloth books, with stitching and painting, as well as wall pieces from the 1950s up to 2000. Along with Louise Bourgeois stitched books, these soft volumes speak of identity and exploration. The exhibition included works from a broad range of her diverse practice, from large map-like canvases, to intimate cloth books with illegible text. All of the objects connected with her belief that thread represents the idea of TRANSMISSION and COMMUNICATION.
“the meaning of the work is entrusted to the action of the thread which holds the forms together, persists, builds bridges, creates connections, and attempts to tie different parts of the work together.”
The exhibition was “conceived on the basis of a principle of building up and layering ideas and inspirations...questioning temporal sequences...”
This concept of an artist’s work as a collage of objects and practices jived with my own research on identity. Mom’s recollections are who she is at the moment we have the conversation, and variations in the events are part of the fluidity of memory.
“...an objet d’art... was to be considered as a simple testament, a trace”, as a result of a social relationship experience.
Maria Lai’s books with infinite meaning because the text is illegible, inspired by visual poetry.