Beyond the Colorline
The Exhibit of American Negroes 1900
by Luise von Nobbe

In 1899, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 Great Barrington, Massachusetts) was invited to participate in designing The Georgia Negro exhibition for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. The decision to actively involve African American students from Atlanta University provided an opportunity to make their community visible through a form of representation adequate to their contemporary needs—independent from the dominant white gaze. Du Bois not only created an alternative image of Georgia’s African American population for Europe, but also introduced a new approach to exhibition production: aiming for scientific accuracy (empirical method), he worked directly with the (sub)jects of his inquiry. He himself embodied the figure of the “Black Dandy”—an educated, nonconformist, queer man with revolutionary ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and nationhood.

Mostra dell’attrezzatura Coloniale
VII Triennale di Milano, 1940
by Tommaso Pagani

The Western world remains far from having freed itself from its historical guilt. It once again denies humanity to the Other, while rejecting, stigmatizing, and segregating them beyond its boundaries. The exhibition apparatus constituted one of the highest levels of fascist self-representation: in April–June 1940, at the Mostra dell’attrezzatura Coloniale, a section of the VII Triennale di Milano, there were no documents or images from the colonies, nor any representatives from overseas territories—only examples of decorative arts and loosely evocative environments referring exclusively to Western colonizers’ lifestyles. With the colonial policy agenda already made explicit, the aim was simply to consolidate consent and reinforce principles already familiar to the public. From another perspective, it can be noted that—even as colonial ideology intensified (reaching its peak with the 1938 racial laws)—representational methods became subtler, more insidious, yet more influential.

1st Johannesburg Biennale 1995
by Laura Colantonio, Cristina Gozzini, Chiara Lupi

Why hold a Biennale in Johannesburg? And why immediately after the collapse of Apartheid? In 1995, the first South African Biennale was curated by Christopher Till and Lorna Ferguson. The event coincided with the historic milestone of Apartheid’s end and presented itself as a space for dialogue among communities previously silenced and marginalized. Between attempts to celebrate diversity on one hand and reconstruct a multi-racial, multi-ethnic cultural system on the other, Dispossession, curated by Indian Geeta Kapur and Shireen Gandhy, stood out. It was an all-women exhibition intentionally addressing fractures, absences, and interstitial spaces within social space. Beyond a rhetoric of integration, the 1995 Biennale celebrated the opening of invisible borders and entered South African history as a signal of the new democratic regime.

Aren’t We All Cannibals?
by Valentina Avanzini, Ivna Lameira Martyres, Rebeca Yun Hee Pak

The 24th Biennale di San Paolo, curated by Paulo Herkenhoff, marked a profound break from previous editions, which had been more focused on emulating Western paradigms. Centered on a Nucleo Historico, it adopted the concept of anthropophagy both anthropologically and culturally (as outlined in Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto of Anthropophagy, 1928). The Biennale’s explicitly political aim was to deconstruct the monolithic colonial-messianic cultural paradigm. The initiative went beyond rejecting Eurocentrism by constructing a conceptual and visual framework intrinsically “other” than Western ethnocentrism and logocentrism. Resonances, dialogues, and contaminations became the criteria for constructing narratives, parallels (even anachronistic), and stories of cannibalism. With an authorial-curatorial approach that was deliberately assertive—and which garnered much criticism—Herkenhoff rejected the Hegelian–Kantian view of History and Art History, asserting the need for knowledge production to be always plural and hybrid.

Una questione di priorità: de-patriarcalizzare per decolonizzare
by Andrea Alfano, Marco Antelmi, Francesca Consonni

An indiscreet tourist observes an indifferent miner; the former morbidly gazes at the latter, who knows he will never be recognized as a person. Both form a schizophrenic parallel splitting the space in two—without any distance separating them. We are in Potosí, Bolivia’s silver city—the colonial capital. But what do the tourist and the miner have in common? They are both male. The key is found in Maria Galindo’s interpretation of the Principio Potosì exhibition: it is necessary to bring to light the relationship between colonialism and patriarchy because indigenous intellectuals celebrating resistance rewrite the masculinization of history. According to the theorist, the subordination of indigenous women must pass through an alliance with the other colonizer: disobedience via the bastardillas, those who belong to neither faction. Therefore, the need is not decolonization per se, but a phallic decolonization—especially if the minister for decolonization in Colombia is, once again, male.

WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution
by Letizia Mari, Federica Zanoni, Gao Man, Geng Pan, Martina Matteucci, Simona Cuttitta, Chen Zihan, Dai Qianxun

Peggy Phelan defines feminism as the belief that gender has been and continues to be a fundamental category for organizing a culture founded on a phallocentric vision. In 2007, the first touring exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, curated by Cornelia Butler, debuted at MOCA Los Angeles. Butler emphasized the importance of “not just seeing how feminist art appears, but understanding how feminists look at art.” Its goal was to rethink femininity’s aesthetics and canon through thematic divisions rather than geographic or chronological categories tied to artists’ biographies. The exhibition encouraged participants to work closely within a horizontal creative exchange model—pairing established and emerging artists to create new narratives.

Global Feminism: New Directions in Contemporary Art
by Simona Cioce, Camilla Alberti, Benedetta Dosa, Clarissa Falco

In 1970, Linda Nochlin wrote Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, centering the debate on the radical deconstruction of Western male cultural narratives. Her response aligned with the wave of feminist and postcolonial claims transcending national boundaries. In 2007, Nochlin curated Global Feminism, alongside Maura Reilly: the first international exhibition entirely dedicated to the feminist movement, held at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. As a symbol of the transnational phase of feminist practice, the show deliberately looked beyond Euro-American borders to challenge colonialist art systems.

Gender Check. Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe
by Gilda Li Rosi, Luo Wei, Wu Tianrou, Amelia, Liu Xuan

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of socialist regimes, new challenges arose from rising nationalism and neoliberal pressures from the West. Newly emerged freedoms coexisted with neoconservative role constraints. Gender Check, presented twenty years after the Wall’s fall, was not merely a review of gender roles in Eastern Europe. It focused on transforming an entire region into a space functioning as a (new) border. Boundaries are not only geographical margins or territorial borders; they are complex social institutions. The exhibition presented gendering as zonation.

Women without Shadow, Ruth Noack and Documenta 14
by Yang Dingxuan, Shao Lyufan

In constructing national identity, excluding the Other plays a crucial role. Applying similar tactics, the first editions of documenta were depoliticized through the exclusion of elements that could disrupt modernist narratives. After disrupting previous editions directed by women and a non-European curator, the revision of modernity’s history became imperative in selecting the Austrian duo for documenta 14. Critical analysis must expose exclusion practices still active in documenta’s exhibition production. The traces are there to disrupt dominant (male) narratives and reveal continuous exclusion politics. One of the most surprising facts was Ruth Noack’s stance: though feminist, she allowed herself to be overruled by the dominant rules—abandoning her power.

My Body Doesn’t Exist
by Jang Wanyi, Miao Zihyu, Wang Menjing, Zhao Siyu

Paul B. Preciado proposed with Documenta 14: “What does it feel like to be a problem?” Our society is full of problems: democracy, anticolonialism, indigenous issues, ecology, feminism, sexual liberation, etc. Starting from some of these issues, we will discuss transgenderism: how heterogeneous voices—presented through a video collage—can act against Western patriarchy and the male/female dichotomy. The ongoing process of transformation and formation, as part of subjectivities and societal evolution, dissolves through marginal identities and aspects of gender inequality.

Two Sides of the Same Coin. Matteo Messina in Conversation with Edson Luli

How are macro trends in art assimilated by the market? And above all, how does this limit them? Edson Luli’s experience—an artist simultaneously on the staff and represented by Prometeo Gallery—serves as the starting point to outline the limits of the art system and how these are constantly being challenged. In conversation with Matteo Messina, the discussion will explore how his work and its context influence each other, providing a real and direct snapshot of our environment.

Why Don’t You Show Your Anger?
Performance by Yiyan Liang, Wu Chenan, Wang Jingqi

In 17th-century patriarchal Chinese society, women had no access to formal education. Yet this did not eliminate the urgency to express themselves, leading to the creation of Nü Shu (女书), the “Women’s Writing.” It is not ideographic but phonetic, transcribing the Jiangyong dialect from Hunan. The glyphs are long and narrow, similar to Zhou-dynasty bronze inscriptions. Initially, women used sharpened twigs and kitchen charcoal ink on clothing, fans, belts, handkerchiefs, and embroidered hems—fundamental elements of domestic life relegated to women. Writing was vertical because it was often inscribed on thighs during rare breaks from household duties. Women’s Writing thus became a form of resistance, addressing not love or daily life but the need to escape oppression. Reading these texts was performative, done during the Jiangyong Festa della Corrida: women would sit in circles, sing, and pass their writing to younger generations. This act of creation opened to the community, inviting anyone unrepresented by dominant language to join.