Grossi Maglioni

Grossi Maglioni (Francesca Grossi and Vera Maglioni, * 1982, Rome) began their collaboration in 2006 and their research was mainly in the areas of performance, installation and workshop.

Performative practice is often combined with the production of manipulable objects and installations that host workshops, meetings and public events.

The investigation into various issues related to society and subjectivity combines the methods of artistic research with those of anthropology and education, focusing on the production of long-term projects on politically controversial topics.

The latest works have as their subject the relationship with the other, in particular the relationship of two, and investigate the images and the representation of the gesture.

In the spring of 2020, the period of the pandemic explosion, Grossi Maglioni started a work of comparison and reflection on the issues related to care and motherhood by writing, with the artist Sara Basta, an open letter, "We are the real exhibitions!" , on the condition of artist mothers in Italy. The goal was to bring to light the gender gap that concerns the artists and that is strongly perceived in everyday life.

As a duo, Grossi Maglioni began working on this theme when Francesca Grossi had her first daughter, Bianca, in 2015. Since then, they have built nests and shelters within their installations, where they can look after their children. Subsequently, the artists had other pregnancies, during which they began to work on the transformation of the body through costumes and photographs to make it clear how the establishment of a care relationship can lead the woman's body and mind to expand and change even in awesome and terrifying ways.

In 2017, for the "Campo Grossi Maglioni" exhibition held at AlbumArte, Rome, they developed a first configuration of a nursing tent, which started a new performative and participatory work involving mothers and children. In 2018, in Serbia, during a workshop, on the occasion of the “Magic Carpets” residency, they talked with a group of women in order to write a story that had a “Mother Beast” as the protagonist. During the meeting, some stories related to Serbian culture emerged in which the narration about the mother was accompanied by that of the war, returning a heroic image, dedicated to the homeland, which totally deviates from the image of a woman with animal features and lethal characteristics or seductive ones that the artists had previously treated.

Grossi Maglioni's works have been exhibited in galleries, museums and academic institutions, including: Kaunas Picture Gallery, Kaunas; <rotor> center for contemporary art, Graz; Kunsthalle Bratislava; Academy of Hungary, Rome; Novo Kulturno Naselje, Novi Sad; Swiss Institute, Rome; AlbumArte, Rome; American Academy, Rome; Viafarini, Milan; MACRO, Rome; Verkstad for konst, Norrköping; ERBA Ecole Régionale des Beaux Arts of Besançon; Konstall Museum, Vasa. They have participated in numerous residences, including: Magic Carpets Residency, Novi Sad; Rupextre, residence for artists and anthropologists, Matera; Svenska konstskolan, Nykarleby. From 2008 to 2014, the duo was part of the international research platform for the performing arts, sciences and technologies Vision Forum, based in Sweden.