Tomaso Binga
Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Lux Simonetta, Zeuli Maria Francesca (ed.), Tomasa Binga: autoritratto di un matrimonio, exh. cat., Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea dell’Università La Sapienza, Rome (10 February–26 February 2005), Rome, Gangemi, 2005
Tomasa Binga: autoritratto di un matrimonio, MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea dell’Università “La Sapienza”, Roma, 10 February–26 February 2005
→Tomaso Binga “Scivere non è descrivere” [Writing Is Not Describing], Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, Naples, 29 September–5 December 2015
→Tomaso Binga, Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, Naples, 7 December 2016–11 March 2017
Italian artist and writer.
Tomaso Binga (who was married to the art critic Filiberto Menna) explained that she chose a male pseudonym in order to parody the cultural privileges reserved for men. This ploy to discredit the art world, passing by way of a disguised sexual identity (a theme which occurs throughout her work), started with a demystification of the difference between the sexes in writing and language. She lives in Rome, where, since 1970, she has carried on her tireless activity involving the organization of avant-garde events with performances, collages, video and sonic poetry works, and painting, involving nothing less than a contamination of codes—writing, gestures, bodies, signs, sounds and images—, very frequently pushed to the limits of meaninglessness, as, for example, in E non uscire di casa [And don’t leave the house](1977), Abecedario (1981), Indovina cos’è [Guess what it is] (1987), Rimerotiche [Erotic rhymes] (1992) and Vorrei essere un vigile urbano [I’d like to be a traffic policeman].
Like nothing less than a midwife of images, Binga displays a provocative spirit and unusual opinions, but in order to understand her very varied method of invention, both playful and committed, we must refer not so much to a repetition of futurist tests, as to the anti-sexist themes of the difference between the sexes, psychoanalysis applied to language, and oedipal archetypes. In her countless works and performances, what is invariably involved is a happy sexual liberation of words, with the help of refrains, stereotypes, riddles and a material dissemination of signs.
© 2013 Des femmes – Antoinette Fouque
© Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions
Tomaso Binga, Io e Me [I and Me], 1976, diptych, two black and white photographs and Indian ink, © Photo: Verita Monselles
Tomaso Binga, Alfabetiere murale (detail), 1976, collage on cardboard, 21 elements, Collezione Archivio Menna – Binga, Roma, In comodato al Madre, Napoli, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, © Photo: Amedeo Benestante,
Tomaso Binga, Alfabetiere murale, 1976, collage on cardboard, 21 elements, Collezione Archivio Menna – Binga, Roma, In comodato al Madre, Napoli, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, © Photo: Amedeo Benestante,
Tomaso Binga, Alfabetiere murale (detail), 1976, collage on cardboard, 21 elements, Collezione Archivio Menna – Binga, Roma, In comodato al Madre, Napoli, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, © Photo: Amedeo Benestante,
Tomaso Binga, Mater – Litanie Lauretane, 1976-2015, photocollage and ink on paper, 28 elements, 35 x 40 each, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Ti scrivo solo di domenica [I write only on Sunday], 1977, 52 letters typewritten on Carte di Amalfi Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro, © Photo: Danilo Donzelli
Tomaso Binga, Test per un critico [Test for a critic], 1972, collage on styrofoam, ink, plexiglass, 23 x 45 cm, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Mani per una parabola [Hands for a parable], 1973, styrofoam, collage and plexiglass, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Tirassegno (giallo) [Yellow target], 1971, collage on styrofoam, plexiglass, 49.2 x 49.2 x 4.7 cm, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Angolare [Angular], 1974, marker on bristo paper, 69.8 x 50 cm, Courtesy Tomasoi Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Parole in dissolvenza [Fading out words], 1973, ink on paper, 40 x 139 cm, Courtesy Tomasoi Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
Tomaso Binga, Ritratto analogico [Analog portrait], 1974, collage and marker pen on paper, 50 x 70 cm, Courtesy Tomaso Binga and Galleria Tiziana Di Caro
