Carla Bertola Anthology Exhibition: "Interferences and Interweavings Between Words and Images"

[Giovanni Bonanno]

Press release

 

BONGIANI ART MUSEUM COLLECTION
Carla Bertola Retrospective Exhibition

"Interferences and Interweavings between Words and Images"

From October 2 to December 30, 2025

with 71 works from 1970-2023

curated by Sandro Bongiani

Critical introduction by Giorgio Moio

The artist Carla Bertola

 

The Bongiani Art Museum Collection in Salerno is pleased to present the Retrospective exhibition dedicated to the Turin-based artist Carla Bertola, entitled "Interferences and Interweavings between Words and Images." Curated by Sandro Bongiani, the event features a critical introduction by Giorgio Moio.

It already seems like a decade since Carla Bertola passed away in 2023, given the tendency to consign her to oblivion, driven by a "premature" and incomprehensible silence despite the significant work of this fascinating Turin-based artist spanning over sixty years. A visual artist, writer, verbovisual-sound poet, and performer, she has lived in Turin, where she was born in 1935, and has been a regular participant in international cultural activities since the 1970s. She has exhibited and created installations in numerous spaces and actively participated in numerous sound and performance poetry festivals in various Italian and international cities. At the heart of his work remains writing; a linear and hermetic form of writing that began in the 1960s and underwent a constant and necessary evolution in the late 1970s, encountering visual poetry and shortly thereafter sound poetry, which he has never abandoned. His visual works could not ignore the word, which he never stopped working on and experimenting with letters, newspaper clippings, colored wool threads, lines, and signs, even adding the most disparate materials: sewn fabric, aluminum foil, to create marvelous artist's books. Not to mention the incomprehensible graphemes enclosed between wool threads, often sewn, to form geometric figures that Bertola called Filograffiti, announcing the arrival, in the twilight of his last years, of even a hint of asemic writing. Bertola's visual and ironic poetry, writes Giorgio Moio, which we can define as an interference between the word, sign, and image, is composed through accumulation, association of words, dissociations, a phonetic of the signifier that we also find in her sound poetry, which dissects words and signs with rhythm and sound, creating the so-called "word that can be seen." Obviously, behind all this were her associations with those who were already working in the field of visual poetry at the time (Arrigo Lora Totino, for example, lived nearby), meetings, and participation in publications that focused on both writing and visual art in Italy and abroad.

This first anthological exhibition that the Bongiani Art Museum Collection in Salerno has chosen to dedicate to Carla Bertola presents a first comprehensive overview of her work over the years, which now awaits, two years after her death, careful critical study and the due and worthy attention of critics and institutions.

We would like to thank the personal archives of Carla Bertola and Alberto Vitacchio in Turin for making this important anthology possible, which, with 71 works, summarizes over sixty years of assiduous work (1970-2023).

 

The works

The presentation by Giorgio Moio

Fringes of interference between words and images

 

It's been more than two years since Carla Bertola, an excellent visual and sound poet who played with words, left us: "Towards what? / Towards whom? / Towards where? // The Station Chief knows: // The Chief spins / towards // verses stuck between the verses one and two // Excuse me if I imper the verse if I verse myself / or I verse you a verre to toast / to the one verse // in the meantime through the for / avoid the for verse / and with the verse with the intro verse / to Capo retto // PuntoACapo, THE HEAD VERSE, from A.a. V.v., On the bottom of the white. Five verbovisual poets, edited by G. Moio, Bertoni Editore, 2021."

And it already seems like a decade has passed since Bertola passed away, given the tendency to consign her to oblivion, fueled by a "premature" and incomprehensible silence about her vitally important artistic career spanning over sixty years, fueled by the very people who seemed to respect her in life. And there are very few people to thank if Carla Bertola and her art are still being talked about. One of these people is Sandro Bongiani, owner of a virtual museum of contemporary art located in Salerno (Ophen Art Museum), who organized and curated this anthological exhibition of words, signs, and images arranged across some seventy of Bertola's visual works, from the early 1970s to 2023.

So, Bertola's writing began a steady evolution in the late 1970s, encountering visual poetry and, shortly thereafter, sound poetry. But Carla Bertola was not born as a verbovisual poet or a sound poet. He began his career in the 1960s as a linear poet, or rather, "traditionalist but not too much," as he described himself in those early days. "I was actually already writing at fifteen," he confided to me. His first publications were published in magazines, and were "texts influenced by poets I had read previously: Ungaretti, Quasimodo, Gatto... but I was still searching for my own personal style. […] I don't remember exactly when I discovered Futurism and Dadaism, I think it was the late 1970s. Exploring their texts was fundamental; it also opened the way to sound poetry and action poetry, which I have never abandoned. I could, indeed should, mention at least a few verbovisual poets [e.g., Arrigo Lora Totino, particularly for his sound poetry; Julian Blaine, Eugenio Miccini, etc.], whom I met in those years, who were very significant for my development" (Bertola, from Various Authors, Sul fondo del bianco, op. cit., p. 15).

We could also point out – perhaps without contradiction – that Bertola's linear poetry precluded and still precludes traits of "visuality" that are all too evident, and especially the guiding principles of his sound performances, which he would later develop over the years around the world with Alberto Vitacchio, his lifelong companion. But what linear poetry? Karl Marx stated that "philosophers have so far only interpreted the world in various ways; now it is a question of transforming it."

Does this also apply to the poet? Certainly. The times of declamation of their exclusive interior world, like the Hermeticists or Neorealists, are anachronistic, describing an autobiographical version of reality; we need to return to "discovering" the reality that surrounds us as a challenge that transforms and renames it, placing ourselves before history, not in history. And how does one place oneself before history? Transforming Marx's statement: until now, poets have written rivers of words, oceans of words—and continue to do so—now it's a matter of changing them, writing new ones, tied to remote and worn-out languages. To create new poetic words, experimental poetry, research, alternative and antagonistic to tradition, can only come to our aid, manipulating our worldview from a demeaning and submissive sense of false fetishes. After all, what is poetry if not making the impossible possible?

And Carla Bertola succeeded brilliantly. His visual works, apart from the early drawings, could not ignore the word, the fragments of his linear poems which, almost always written by hand, with an elegant but also incomprehensible, childish, deliberately childish, therefore spontaneous handwriting, on sometimes rather strange supports, such as the photographic screens for printing that he procured in stationery shops a few decades ago, which were the beginning of the Frange d'interoperazione project, on which he never stopped working and experimenting, also adding newspaper clippings, colored wool threads, lines, and signs, along with the addition of the most disparate materials: fabric sewn onto cardstock and/or cardboard, colored paper, aluminum foil easily sewn and folded into arbitrary shapes, adhesive tape, fragments of twigs, letters or hints of letters, often sewn like embroidery onto even fine fabrics, to the point of turning some original works into artist's books. And speaking of letters—I mean the envelopes we use to send materials all over the world—Bertola resented the fact that many of them got lost along the way without ever reaching their recipient, or that they returned to the sender in terrible condition, worn and damaged from the double journey, ending up in the wastepaper basket. A lover of paper in all its forms, with these envelopes of every shape and age—often found in flea markets and vintage shops—exploiting their various colors and interiors, and adding fragments of handwriting, she created 45 highly singular works that she titled Metamorphose of Undelivered Letters. This was Carla, an artist full of resources and original ideas.

But who is Carla Bertola? She lived in Turin, where she was born in 1935 and passed away in March 2023. A visual artist, writer, performer, and promoter of cultural initiatives, she participated in numerous international exhibitions. She had numerous solo exhibitions as well as sound and action poetry performances in various European cities as well as in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba. She was Artist in Residence at the Sirius Arts Centre in Ireland in 2010. With Alberto Vitacchio, she performed the largest number of sound performances and pieces called Poesiteatro. He has published only two books of linear poetry (at least in Italy), I Monologhi (SIC, 1973) and Ritrovamenti (Eureka Edizioni, 2016). His verbovisual books, artist's books, and poems can be found in numerous catalogues, anthologies, public and private collections, and print and online magazines («Letteratura»; «Altri Termini»; «Carte Segrete»; «Uomini e Idee»; «Anterem»; «Testuale»; «Salvo Imprevisti»; «Amenophis»; «Plages»; «D(o)cks»; «Dopodomani»; «Risvolti»; «L’Intranquille»; «Otoliths»; «Ulu-late»; «Margutte»; «Utsanga»; «Frequenze Poetiche», etc.). A representative selection of his works is on display at the Museo della Carale in Ivrea. Among her anthologies, we note Poesia Totale (Mantua, 1998); A Point of View Visual '90 (Russia, 1998); Libri d’Artista in Italia (Turin, 1999); International Artists' Books (Hungary, 2000). Since 1978, together with Vitacchio, she has edited and directed the international multimedia magazine "Offerta Speciale" and its companion publication "Busta a sorpresa," which featured original works by international poets and artists. Over 50 issues of this magazine featured over 600 authors, distinguishing itself with proposals for experimental, linear, and visual poetry, dispensing with editorials and criticism.

Bertola was never particularly inclined to sentimentality. She played with words and images. Even in her "serious" writings, one could glimpse a streak of irony and "an absolute lack of pity toward myself (according to a critic who also criticized me, thank goodness)." Bertola's poetry, which becomes one with the visual, is studded with irony, lightheartedness, and cheerfulness; sadness, melancholy, and aggressive invective, which, according to Bertola herself, were the sentiments that publishers (Italian, of course) always used as excuses not to publish her.

Bertola's visual poetry is also composed through accumulation, word association, dissociation, alliteration, and puns; a phonetics of meaning that is also found in her sound poetry, which dissects words and signs with rhythm and sound that press into every corner of the page, often occupying (or more accurately, invading) its entire white space, creating the so-called "visible word."

We can define all of Bertola's visual work as an interference between word and sign, chirography on a surface that has all the characteristics of a textile material often used as a support in her work. The starting point of Bertola's artistic journey, to which she has dedicated her entire life—one might say—to research and experimentation in the field of linear visual sound poetry, performance, artist's books, and installations, cannot be separated from the linear poetry she began composing naturally at a very young age. As in linear poetry, visual poetry also features an analysis and dictation of everyday life devoid of sentimentality, leaving ample room for skillful irony, a deconstruction and reconstruction of an equally skillful, contemptuous game that since the 1980s—keeping aloof from the visual poetry based purely on collage and typographical word clippings like slogans, taken from newspapers and magazines—has manifested itself through the use of color and various techniques, such as frottage (an ancient technique rediscovered by the Surrealists) or with accumulations of large, colored typographic letters jumbled together, even on large supports. Not to mention incomprehensible graphemes enclosed between woolen threads, often sewn, to form geometric figures that Bertola has called Filograffiti, announcing the arrival, in the twilight of his later years, of even a hint of asemic writing.

Carla […] exploited the connections generated by combining a poetic text with an image. Sometimes the text already existed and was thus adapted and often enhanced by the union with the visual part; other times the text was written at the moment of being combined with the image, thus becoming a new visual work.

Obviously, behind all this were the associations with those who were already working in the field of visual poetry at that time (Arrigo Lora Totino, for example, lived near us), the meetings and participation in publications that dealt with both writing and visual art in Italy and abroad" (Alberto Vitacchio, Carla Bertola parolasuonoimmagine, self-produced, undated, pp. 14-15).

In conclusion, this anthological exhibition of Carla Bertola's art represents all of her varied and diverse compositions: deliberately "childish" writings, whether typewriter-based or on digital media, and figurative drawings with handwritten inscriptions, more noble and elegant calligraphy, artist's books with pieces of fabric, crumpled, creased, and folded colored paper, fragments of leaves, sewn or glued buttons, matches, collages, inks, Indian ink, pastels, colored markers, and even entire pages of handwriting between lines and stamped signs. from all rules and schemes: a quantity of materials for multiple projects, even in small formats, which still await accurate and in-depth critical study.

Bongiani Art Collection Museum

Opening: Thursday, October 2, 2025, at 6:00 PM

EVENT: From October 2 to December 30, 2025

TITLE: Carla Bertola's Anthology, "Interferences and Interweavings between Words and Images" 1970-2023

LOCATION: Salerno, Italy

CURATORS: Sandro Bongiani

CRITICAL TEXT: Giorgio Moio

ADDRESS: Via S. Calenda 105/D – Salerno

HOURS: Every day from 12:00 AM to 12:00 AM

PHONE FOR INFORMATION: [phone]

EMAIL INFO: [e-mail]

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: https://www.collezionebongianiartmuseum.it/

 

Event reported by the Ophen Virtual Art Archive of Salerno