From 18 February to 14 May 2023 the MACTE - Museum of Contemporary Art of Termoli presents sub , an exhibition curated by Michele D'Aurizio, the result of two years of research. D'Aurizio was invited in 2020 by Caterina Riva, who had just been appointed director, to conceive an exhibition for the specificity of the museum, its geographical position and the composition of its collection linked to the Termoli Prize.

Traditionally, the study of the transnational dimension of Italian neo-avant-garde movements has emphasized comparative trajectories with contemporary trends in Europe and the United States. This original exhibition project, on the other hand, hypothesizes a radical change of course, proposing an unprecedented look at artistic positions tangential to the Italian art scene and wrongly considered peripheral, and opening the art created in Italy after the Second World War to dialogue with experiences rooted in other geographies.

The exhibition brings together works by nine artists – Betty Danon, Antonio Dias, Jorge Eduardo Eielson, Hsiao Chin, Tomás Maldonado, Roberto Sebastian Matta, Carmengloria Morales, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Joaquín Roca-Rey – born in Asia or South America. After the Second World War, all these figures spent more or less long stays in Italy and, in some cases, moved there permanently. This exhibition hypothesizes that their research, even where it is indebted to the Western artistic tradition, has distant roots, in visual cultures that have emerged on the periphery of the globalized world. Affiliated with important cultural movements such as Concrete Art, Arte Povera, Feminism, New Trends, Analytical Painting, Radical Design, these male and female artists have rarely been recognized for their contributions. Their works have helped to hybridise the theoretical apparatuses and aesthetic programs of these tendencies, revealing their Eurocentric approach.