Ludovica Anversa

Autotomia

Curated by Francesca Guerisoli

Fondazione La Rocca presents Autotomia, the first solo exhibition by Ludovica Anversa (Milan, 1996), from 24 March to 15 June 2024. The exhibition, curated by Francesca Guerisoli, presents 22 previously unpublished works, oil canvases and drawings, created by the artist over the last year and is accompanied by a critical speech by the painter and writer Sofia Silva (Padua, 1990).

The title “Autotomy ’ is taken from the 1972 poem of the same name by Wisława Szymborska (Poland, 1923-2012), Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, which recalls the process of splitting the body enacted by some animals under attack to distract the predator.

A sense of continuous metamorphosis, detachment, of an intermediate state runs through all the works in the exhibition. Like those animals that voluntarily lose a part of themselves, we too practise autotomy, either to overcome a trauma or to show society our more acceptable face. The figures in the paintings on show inhabit non-narrative spaces in which the body emerges as a permeable and receptive entity. Ludovica Anversa investigates images in their precariousness and aims to generate a sense of vulnerability that blurs the boundaries between what is perceived and what is seen.

The works refer to enigmatic visions, similar to residues or materialisations of psychic experiences. These semi-abstractions elude a single interpretative definition and often radiate towards the margins, showing themselves transparently as spectres, after-images or hallucinaz. Evoking the body by analogy, they follow rhythmic and vital movements that influence each other, hinting at moments of intimate transformation.

In some works, Ludovica Anversa slips into a more visceral dimension, where the flesh seems to be more present and the materiality of the body becomes more tangible. The idea of the interior and interiority overlap. On the one hand, the idea of an image in the process of forming emerges, containing the potential germ of its own evolution. On the other, the trace of what has already been, capable of recalling its presence through an absence; something has ‘passed’ on the surface and is now only visible in the form of a shadow-impression. This idea of ‘impression’ takes on visual and material qualities that are now sensual, now disturbing.

When we stand in front of any image we try to trace the body in it, because finding ourselves there reassures us. If the image is fragmented and ambiguous or disturbs identity, system, order, we feel a sense of abjection. What are we ready to recognise and what do we reject in order to keep ourselves whole?