Le avanguardie dall’altra parte 1910/1950 : Lea Vergine e quella mostra mancata alla GAM di Bologna

In January 1976, four years before the staging of "L’altra metà dell’avanguardia 1910-1940. Pittrici e scultrici nei movimenti delle avanguardie storiche" at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, Lea Vergine proposed the exhibition at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna. The art critic and curator directly addressed Franco Solmi, director of the newly founded GAM. The correspondence between Vergine and Solmi, preserved in the archives of the Bologna museum (now MAMbo), sheds light on the development of the exhibition proposal at the time entitled "Le avanguardie dall’altra parte 1910-1950", and on the curator’s initial intentions. The project presented to the management committee of the museum by Solmi immediately encountered various obstacles: the decision was suspended on several occasions and for different reasons – in particular economic ones – until the autumn of 1978 when the refusal was made explicit and the interest of the city of Milan was announced. Other episodes connected to Vergine’s role in relation to the Bolognese museum are intertwined, such as the involvement of the artist Gina Pane who in 1976 at the GAM realised the performance "Io mescolo tutto". Through unpublished documents and testimonies, the essay restores a still little-known event concerning a strongly desired exhibition by its curator which we now consider central in shedding light on the role of women artists in the historical avant-gardes. Moreover, the essay intends to propose itself as a case study to enhance the critical contribution of unrealised projects and occasions such as this first Bolognese version of Vergine’s exhibition.