Maria Lai (Ulassai, 1919) starting from her debut during the 1940s, occupies a particular place in the panorama of Italian art which is increasingly clearly revealing itself to this day to be extraordinarily current and capable of communicating with the works of the artists of the latest generations.

The link with the land of origin and the reinterpretation of local culture with an attitude attentive to what is nearby but never provincial, the ability to freely express this link within a broader reflection on the reasons for artistic creation, the close comparison with the public’s reactions and the interest in activating social relations through the dynamics suggested by the works themselves, the freedom in the use of materials and languages ​​considered traditionally artisanal, are in fact some of the central themes present in the artist’s work and, in fact, are the same themes addressed by numerous artists protagonists of the international art scene of the last decade.

Maria Lai’s exhibition at the Man, Art Museum of the Province of Nuoro is a precious opportunity to learn about the central steps of this journey. In addition to significant historical works by the artist, others created specifically for the occasion are on display (Cafeteria, Ulassai, Beach, Sa domu de su dolu) and still others born from the rethinking and resumption of works created previously which, in the light of current sentiment, see the dramatic component accentuated accompanied by the desire that the process of transformation and search for dialogue does not fail. Landslide , for example, takes up in stone and ceramic the intervention Legarsi alla Montagna created by the artist in his hometown in 1981, Tower it is composed of one of the artist’s well-known time-tested frames with a new wooden structure and the result symbolically recalls the presence of a torn building.

Just as the memories that are deposited in our memory are destined to be reread, redefined, questioned with the passage of time, so Maria Lai looks at the past not as an entity consolidated once and for all but as a set of elements subject to continuous revisions. The dynamic flow of memory prevails over History.

Edited by Emanuela de Cecco