The Nivola Museum is pleased to present the first major retrospective of the surrealist artist Bona de Mandiargues (Rome 1926 - Paris 2000).

Artist and writer, her singular story - never previously reconstructed - makes her, together with figures such as Leonora Carrington, Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea Tanning, Dora Maar or Remedios Varo, one of the protagonists of the panorama of "feminine" surrealism today finally at the center of the attention of critics and the public.

His work arises from a self-search that finds the means to express a divided and fragmented identity in the themes of metamorphosis, animal totemism and the fantastic. “My research is alchemical - stated the artist - I want to make gold from excrement. (...) I remake the world: there I am elsewhere, I see things from further away.”

A fascinating woman, much admired and generator of overwhelming passions, Bona explicitly rejects the roles of woman-muse and woman-child, prevalent in the context of Surrealism. Instead, at least since the seventies, it has been identified with the snail, a hermaphrodite animal and ambivalent figure, at the same time friendly (think of the blue fairy in Pinocchio) and repugnant, the embodiment of the formless surrealist. For the artist, the snail is a symbol of the androgynous, of fragility and strength, and of the continuous torment of his restless mind.

The exhibition, based on extensive archival research, reconstructs Bona de Mandiargues' itinerary through 71 works between 1950 and 1997 , coming from the collection of the artist's heirs and from private and public collections including the Intesa Foundation San Paolo, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and the Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ferrara.

The journey, opened by a group of precious paintings that mark the artist's approach to surrealist imagery, continues with the fantastic fiery landscapes of 1955-56, influenced by a trip to Upper Egypt, and the abstract works with thick pastes and materials from the second half of the fifties to the early sixties, when the suggestion of Mexican culture added new elements to his imagery.