24 Facts About Lea Vergine

Lea Vergine, born Lea Buoncristiano, was an Italian art critic, essayist, and curator.

Lea Vergine received her first schooling from a private teacher.

Lea Vergine then attended the Liceo Umberto I, where she formed a close relationship based on mutual esteem with her Italian teacher, Teresa Benevento.

Lea Vergine enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy, which she left at the age of 19 to start writing for local newspapers.

Lea Vergine married Adamo Lea Vergine at a very young age in the same year and kept his surname even after their separation.

In 1965, Lea Vergine presented at Il Centro the exhibition on MID, a group of visual experimenters who presented their poetic and programmatic statements Antonio Barrese, membro del MID.

Lea Vergine reconstructed a critical historiography that for many decades "was to remain a manifesto against the cultural marginalisation of this city, a capital city that was removed and self-removed from the broader narrative of the history of Italian art in the 20th century".

Lea Vergine began a collaboration with Radio3, Rai's culture channel, interviewing authors and reporting on current exhibitions.

Lea Vergine continued her collaboration with Radio3 and began to write articles for periodicals and newspapers such as Il Tempo illustrato, Paese Sera, and for the international avant-garde art magazine Metro, at the invitation of her friend Gillo Dorfles.

Lea Vergine wrote reviews of exhibitions and books for the weekly La Fiera Letteraria and for linus, a monthly comics magazine.

Lea Vergine identifies the precedents of Body Art in the practices of visual artists who had already used the body as a means of expression in the 1950s, such as Jackson Pollock or the Gutai Group, up to the performances of Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, Fluxus, the theatrical experiments of the Living Theatre, and the cinematographic experiments of Andy Warhol.

In 1974, Lea Vergine curated, together with the critic Pierre Restany, the exhibition Eros come linguaggio at the Galleria Eros in Milan, inviting numerous Italian artists to take stock of the amorous-erotic situation of the time.

In 1975, Lea Vergine wrote the introductory text for a portfolio of graphic works by nine Italian women artists: Carla Accardi, Mirella Bentivoglio, Valentina Berardinone, Nilde Carabba, Tomaso Binga, Dadamaino, Amalia Del Ponte, Grazia Varisco and Nanda Vigo.

Lea Vergine underlined its political value: "the fact that the war is still on, that the revolt is still going on, that a revolutionary feminist strategy is still an objective to be developed, is proved by this portfolio that sees a group of women artists making a political gesture of solidarity towards the movement".

Lea Vergine had approached the environment of kinetic art thanks to her acquaintance with Giulio Carlo Argan and her companion Enzo Mari.

Lea Vergine had outlined a first critical reading of the results of programmed and kinetic art in the magazine Lineastruttura, later developed in the conference of 11 March 1973, within the cycle of didactic activities of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna.

Lea Vergine's research focused on the years of the movement's first theoretical formulations, which she considered the most significant.

In 1985, Lea Vergine curated the first retrospective of Carol Rama, organised by the City of Milan and set up by architect Achille Castiglioni in the mezzanine of the underground under the Sagrato del Duomo.

At the PAC, Lea Vergine examined the artist's recent production, selecting works from after 1981, the year that marked the end of the cycle of her performances and the beginning of her "partitions", a term whose meaning she explained in the catalogue: "Partitions as the act of dividing, separating, mixing forms, materials, colours, sometimes sonorisations or sounds; but partition as a musical score that includes the reading and interpretation of the work by the viewer".

The exhibition, curated by Lea Vergine and installed by Achille Castiglioni, focused on twenty-three young artists, born between about 1955 and 1960, who during the mid-1980s worked using a vocabulary of abstract or geometric forms.

Lea Vergine explained in the catalogue that the title of the exhibition derived from the extensive use of geometry, "bizarre and disobedient geometry anomalous, quarrelsome, often exalted by a Dionysian component".

Lea Vergine collected the works of forty artists who had dealt with the theme of shadow, of experiences on the borderline between the physical world and the magical world, or such as to highlight the secret part of people and objects.

Lea Vergine had long-lasting collaborations with the daily newspapers il manifesto and its cultural insert Alias, as well as Corriere della Sera and their supplements L'architettura and Abitare.

Lea Vergine wrote for culture and society magazines L'Europa letteraria, L'Europeo, the Tuttolibri Sunday supplement to the daily La Stampa, Panorama, L'illustrazione Italiana, and Vanity Fair.