For me, writing is an interdisciplinary practice, which does not stay within a specific genre (prose, theory, and art criticism), but rather hybridises and blends them in a function of a gaze that I have formed through an artistic practice originating from the idea of distraction (physical, social) from the attention that the visual demands.
Movement is the instrument to which my formal attentions are linked: for the most part, these are performances of bodily practices or configurations, which generate a continuum of energy between bodies or objects. These are neither performances nor sculptures but timely demonstrations of a departure from an essentially capitalist and patriarchal visual-art discipline (only in rare cases is the gaze tactile and escapes a sense of possession).
Often the choices in my work are based on my obsession with:
- The relationship between the construction of gender and the development of verbal and written language
- The body and invisible energies that transcend linguistic interactions
- The assumptions that lead to women as the first artists in history (which differs widely from the academic narrative)
When people engage in various types of activity—alone, with each other, with objects—they create realities, which depend on degrees of interaction and inertia. Movement makes the unrepresentable visible, while passivity and distraction are sexualised concepts. The condition for the realisation of my work is the continuation of my interest, my centring, and my energy.
Seeking the construction of possible alternatives, I see in the loss of the visual the possibility of escape from the normative attention that art still demands.
Sara Benaglia is an essayist, a journalist, and an artist. She has been curator at the BACO-BaseArteContemporaneaOdierna space in Bergamo since 2016. She is also a lecturer at NABA in Milan in the Faculty of Design and at LABA in the Photography and Graphic Design Departments.
WRITTING AND TRANSLATIONS
Sara collaborates with the magazines ATPdiary—where she has two columns: one dedicated to metaphotography and augmented images and the other one to designers—Doppiozero, and Art e Dossier, where she focuses her essays on the hidden interconnection between humanism and the matrix of race in the “Italic” Renaissance context.
For Postmedia, she translated Why Font Matter (2024) by Sarah Hyndman, Narratology in Practice (2024) by Mieke Bal, The Art of Memory in the Contemporary World (2024) by Andreas Huyssen, and Forgetting Photography (2023) by Andrew Dewdney.
SELECTED CURATED EXHIBITIONS AT BACO (BaseArteContemporaneaOdierna)
2021: Waterfalls, Alberto Sinigaglia
2020: Metafotografia (2). Le mutazioni delle immagini
2020: XYZ, with works by Daniele Maffeis, Elena Radice, and Hasan Özgür Top
2019: Stasis, Maya Watanabe (video screening)
2019: Metafotografia. Dentro e oltre il medium nell’arte contemporanea
2018: Supervision, Irene Fenara
2017: Campi
2016: Il cinema sperimentale di Marinella Pirelli
2016: The Concave Mirror
saramarghe@gmail.com
instagram: @sara__benaglia
PUBLICATIONS
She has published Note ai margini della storia dell’arte (Postmedia, 2023), The Mobility of the Matrix (Lubrina Editore, 2021), and Casting the Circle (Fortino Editions, 2015). She is co-author, with Mauro Zanchi, of Le insidie delle immagini (Postmedia, 2022), Metafotografia(3). Imagomorfosi e altre ricerche (Skinnerboox 2021), Metafotografia(2). Le mutazioni delle immagini (Skinnerboox 2020), and Metafotografia. Dentro e oltre il medium nell’arte contemporanea (Skinnerboox 2019)
PUBLIC PANELS
2021: LVNATICA, Accademia di Spagna in Rome, invited by Leire Vergara from BULEGOA Z/B
2021: Metafotografia, Spazi Fotografici, with Mauro Zanchi and Carlo Sala
2020: Metafotografia, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
2019: Lecture L’Africa in giardino, with Mauro Zanchi, MACRO, Rome
2017: The Book is on the Screen, curated by Valeria Raho, SPRINT, Milan
2016: Contribution for I Femminismi e i Postumanismi with M. Zanchi, S. Frangi, and V. Broggini, Via Farini, Milan
2015: Casting the Circle, Artissima Fair, Turin
2012: Effetto Venturi, invited by Eva Marisaldi, Peep-Hole, Spazio Oberdan, Milan
"Barbara", Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Last Solo Exhibition
2019: Pink Rust, CCA Kitakyushu, Fukuoka
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021: The Family of the Man, Museo Archeologico Regionale, curated by Elio Grazioli and Walter Guadagnini
2020: AEROPONIC ACTS 2020: Bend it!, Radio Kootwijk (NL)
2019: The Green Wave (performance lecture), Silent Green, Berlin
2018: Human Capital (performance lecture), Arnhem
2016: Fine con fine, Fondazione Merz, Torino
2015: Mayo 2015, La Ira de Dios, Buenos Aires
Art@Tell, HSG, St. Gallen
RESIDENCIES
2023: HANGAR, Lisbon
2016: PROGR, Bern
2015: Fondazione Spinola Banna per l'Arte
2014: CCA Kitakyushu
2013: V.I.R. Via Farini In Residence, Milan
2013: Mustarinda, Hyrynsalmi
ARTIST ASSISTANT ROLES
Sara worked as an artist assistant for Joan Jonas (2013) and Chiara Fumai (2011–12).
EDUCATION
2018–2020: Art Praxis (MA), Dutch Art Institute, Arntez University of the Arts
2010–2012: Fine Arts (BA), Brera Academy, Milan
2007–2009: Theory and Techniques of Contemporary Art, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo