Bologna is the city of Alma Mater Studiorum, the University of Bologna, for almost a thousand years a garrison of knowledge. ART CITY Bologna 2026, at its fourteenth stage, for this edition has chosen to propose the Special Program Il corpo della lingua (The body of language), curated by Caterina Molteni. The works of the proposed artists insert themselves and dialogue perfectly with various university sites. Il corpo della lingua means speaking of physical, vocal experience and of relationship between bodies, knowledges and spaces. The title pays homage to the homonymous essay by Giorgio Agamben, in which the philosopher outlines a true and proper anatomy of language.
Jenna Sutela, “nimiia cétiï”, 2018, Laboratorio didattico del Distretto Navile, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
In the Teaching Laboratory of Distretto Navile (of which the Astronomy Section of the Department of Physics and Astronomy is also part) we encountered the evocative work by Jenna Sutela, nimiia cétiï (2018), which investigates the systems of biology and informatics to probe the relationship between consciousness and physical world and the exchanges between organic and technological agents such as extremophile bacteria and computers. In particular, we speak of Bacillus subtilis: these extremophile bacteria can be considered the beings that most closely approach Martians, because following the latest space flight experiments it seems they can survive on the red planet. I spoke about it with a scientist friend who studies Jupiter’s satellites and she told me there’s one covered with ice, under which water flows and therefore the possibility of life. It would be fascinating to speak of Panspermia (scientific hypothesis according to which life on Earth did not originate on our planet, but arrived from space, transported by meteorites, comets or interstellar dust) and of life that is disseminated by microorganisms like Bacillus subtilis throughout space.
Augustas Serapinas, “6 Chairs”, installation view at Fondazione Federico Zeri, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
We now move to Fondazione Federico Zeri, a research center dedicated to art history, with over 450,000 photographs of monuments and artworks largely digitized and accessible online. In particular, in the reading room of the Library with trussed ceiling that houses 60,000 volumes (painting and sculpture from the 12th to 19th century, still life, collections, museums, archaeology and much more) all in open shelving, we find reproposed the work Chair for the Invigilator, part of a series presented for the first time in 2019 at the 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. These are wooden seats, wonderfully integrated with the wood of the trusses and shelves, that recall the raised stations of lifeguards or tennis umpires, designed to offer a better observation point and to seat workers who otherwise would have to always stand, as underlines Augustas Serapinas (1990, Vilnius, Lithuania), whose work starts precisely from the analysis of hierarchies of spaces in which we dwell.
Alexandra Pirici, “Attune”, 2024, Teatro Anatomico, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
And again a work perfectly integrated in the place chosen by the curator. We are in the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio Municipal Library, inside which public dissections took place. On the table where autopsies took place Alexandra Pirici transforms autopsy into a series of movements linked to life, a “reconnection”, from which the title Rejoin, with the complex systems of the body. The performer proposes different forms of life and figures like the Venerina, wax reproduction of a dying pregnant woman preserved at Palazzo Poggi, but also an animal or a plant reproposed as single photographic shots of which she reproduces the sound. The work questions us, asks for answers, embarrasses us. The work is realized thanks to the support of Banca di Bologna.
Ana Mendieta, “Flower Person, Flower Body”, 1975, Super 8mm film transferred to HD digital media, color, silent; 6 min. 20 sec. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection, LLC. Licensed Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE Milan 2026 / Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, installation view Sala Boschereccia, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
In the case of Ana Mendieta we can say that it is nature, background of the performance, in her Flower Person, Flower Body (1975), that plays well with the frescoes of Mediterranean fronds and classical ruins painted in tempera on the walls and vault of the Sala della Boschereccia of Palazzo Hercolani. The natural landscape in the video and the illusion of a natural landscape in the room. Mendieta’s work interrogates correspondence between body and other natural elements seeking its roots with physical proximity to the earth. And we are in turn immersed in the woodland green to deepen understanding of the work.
Giulia Deval, “PITCH. Notes on vocal intonation”, 2025, Aula Alessandro Ghigi dell’ex Istituto di Zoologia ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
The work of the two artists we are going to visit at this point is focused especially on voice. One is Giulia Deval, singer and multimedia artist who explores the politics of voice. Her work, Pitch, Notes on Vocal Intonation, reasons on the role of voice intonation in its declination between high and low tones, and on how these become power structures. In the Alessandro Ghigi Hall of the former Institute of Zoology, the typical horseshoe-shaped tiered classroom still equipped with original furnishings, the artist holds a true lesson, but with ironic tones, basing herself on a theory that in turn is founded on the studies of zoologist Eugene S. Morton on the key role of vocal intonation in communicating one’s dimensions in conflict situations. The other artist is Nora Turato who in To the Best of My Knowledge, translates word into plastic, sonic and conceptual matter. All in the spaces of the University Library, BUB, which is located inside Palazzo Poggi, institutional headquarters of Alma Mater. At the center of the project the concept of “grounding”, literally rooting, touching earth. In short, a sensitive experience thanks to language with the use of installations based on texts, prints and books.
Mike Kelley, “Day Is Done. Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstructions #2-#32”, 2005-2006, video, colore, suono, 169′, Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York & the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Los Angeles / SIAE Milano 2026. Ex Facoltà di Ingegneria, ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civici Bologna
Finally, the video work by Mike Kelley Day Is Done. Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstructions #2-#32 (2005-2006), which investigates relationships between power, psyche and institutions, is projected in the atrium of the former Faculty of Engineering. Here too the place of projection with the passage of students who enter and exit acts as counterpoint to what happens in the video. A dance of three masks that make a kind of conga line and strange characters who enter and exit. A collection of thirty-one musical short films inspired by extracurricular activities, precisely the events that take place outside class hours. In addition to these delicious pairings of work and location one cannot miss the visit to MAMbo with the exhibition John Giorno: The Performative Word, curated by Lorenzo Balbi. The first great institutional retrospective dedicated to him proposes in the Sala delle Ciminiere the beautiful installation Dial-A-Poem, interactive work with which the artist made accessible to the public the recordings of the voices of poets, artists, musicians and activists intent on reading their own compositions with the iconic telephones.
Info:
Special Program: Il corpo della lingua
curated by Caterina Molteni
Art city Bologna
05-08/02/2026
Sedi Varie – Bologna
www.artcity.bologna.it
Cover image: Nora Turato, “To the Best of My Knowledge”, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna – Aula Magna ph. Ornella De Carlo, courtesy Settore Musei Civi
Emanuele Magri teaches History of Art in Milan. Since 2007 he has been writing abroad for Juliet art Magazine. Since the 1970s he has dealt with writing and visual arts. He created taxonomically defined worlds, in which he experimented with the self-referentiality of language, such as “La Setta delle S’arte” in which ritual clothes are made starting from words with multiple meanings, the “Treaty of genetic art” in which a series of plants is obtained from grafts of human organs, eyes, hands, mouths, etc., and the project “Fandonia”, a city where everything is double and hybrid.
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