The Fondazione Galleria Milano presents the exhibition Silent Invasion, dedicated to the work of Valentina Berardinone (Naples, 1929 – Milan, 2024) produced between 1967 and the early 1970s. The solo show is curated by Nicola Pellegrini and Bianca Trevisan, with a film section curated by Jennifer Malvezzi.
The exhibition is the result of an extensive effort to organize, catalog, and inventory the artist’s archive, a process that began in 2019. Berardinone was an experimental, multimedia artist, politically active during the years of protest, particularly within feminist circles. At the same time, her reserved nature led her to move her artistic practice into increasingly secluded territory over the years, while still maintaining strong and engaged ties to the intellectual world of Milan and beyond. Through sculpture, painting, installations, and experimental films, she is now considered one of the most significant Italian female artists of her time.
Born in Naples, she moved to Milan in the early 1950s, a city she never left, except for a period spent in Brazil between 1956 and 1958. She began her artistic career with abstract painting, holding her first solo exhibition at Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in 1956. From that point onward, she took part in numerous group exhibitions and art prizes across Italy. In Milan, her key references became Beatrice Monti with her Galleria dell’Ariete (from 1958) and Carla Pellegrini with Galleria Milano (from 1970). During those years, several notable figures wrote about her work, including Gillo Dorfles, Luciano Caramel, Mario De Micheli, Emilio Tadini, Vittorio Fagone, Filiberto Menna, and Lea Vergine, with whom she maintained a lifelong friendship.
The title of the exhibition at Fondazione Galleria Milano comes from Berardinone’s first manifesto-film, Silent Invasion (1971), where the image of a staircase—repeated and shot from various angles—becomes a symbol of the political and social system. The epoxy resin dripping from the steps suggests a “silent invasion”, much like the historical transformations of those years. Le invasioni (The Invasions) is also the title of a portfolio of eight self-published screenprints from 1972, and more importantly, the name of a series of her well-known wooden and epoxy resin sculptures from 1970 onwards, of which the Foundation presents a selection.
To trace the origins of these “drippings” and understand their conceptual framework as a method of verification within the artist’s practice, the exhibition also includes sculptures from the Visite cycle, created from 1967 onwards. These early resin experiments reflect a more psychoanalytic dimension compared to the staircases. Works, projects, and multiples from the Guardoni (Peepers) series are also included, in which another central theme of Berardinone’s visual language emerges: the gaze—often invasive, surveilling, yet also suggesting a peripheral vision or a glimpse of what lies off to the side. Her 2003 artist’s book was aptly titled Con la coda dell’occhio (Out of the Corner of the Eye).
The exhibition reconstructs Berardinone’s creative process and key installation setups from those years through materials from the Valentina Berardinone Archive, along with photographs by Enrico Cattaneo, Paola Mattioli, Nataly Maier, among others. Also featured is photographic documentation by Ugo Mulas of her intervention at Campo Urbano (Como, 1969, curated by Luciano Caramel), where she presented her Antimonumento alla Vittoria (Anti-Monument to Victory)—a work that straddled sculpture and performance, evoking both dismay and engagement from the public.
In the lower level of the exhibition, alongside drawings and projects, visitors can view the film Silent Invasion (1971). In a special screening event, three of her films will be projected from original reels: Letture n. 3(1972), Viaggio Sentimentale (1972), and Urbana (1973), all recently restored and preserved by the Fondazione Home Movies in Bologna.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a catalogue is published by Kunstverein (Milan), with texts by Bianca Trevisan, curator of the Valentina Berardinone Archive; Jennifer Malvezzi, film works specialist (Fondazione Home Movies, Bologna); and the first reprint of a 1973 interview by Lea Vergine with the artist. The publication will be presented at the Museo del Novecento on November 12.
Silent Invasion also marks the official launch of the Valentina Berardinone Archive, which—at the initiative of her son Alessandro Ippolito—preserves and promotes her work and documentary legacy. The Archive is part of Archivi Riuniti, a program by Fondazione Galleria Milano aimed at supporting and enhancing the archives of artists who have had a significant relationship with the gallery, or with whom the Foundation feels a particular affinity.
Image caption: Valentina Berardinone, Primo esperimento: Invasioni (First Experiment: Invasions), 1972.
Photo by Enrico Cattaneo. Courtesy Archivio Enrico Cattaneo.
