The practices of listening and engagement with the audience are defining features of Liliana Moro’s work.

Liliana Moro. Andante con moto is the first major solo exhibition of the artist, who was born in Milan, Italy, in 1961. The show spans a period from the early work of the late 1980s to her current output and also includes a number of new pieces developed for the display at Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein. The exhibition is devoted to a fundamental aspect of her oeuvre: sound, to which the title already alludes.

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein holds a considerable number of Italian artworks in its collection, above all from the Arte Povera movement. Liliana Moro trained at the Brera Academy, Milan – at a time when Arte Povera was finding its way into art academies and museum collections and a process of historicization was just beginning. In this show, the Kunstmuseum is presenting an Italian artist from the following generation whose work arose from a gesture of radical freedom and emancipation from questions being negotiated at the time.

From her early beginnings until the present, Liliana Moro has explored different means of expression in her work, including sound, spoken and written language, sculpture, performance, drawing, collage and video. Often her works are based on everyday objects and situations, inviting the audience to glimpse behind the – seemingly – obvious. Each of her artistic gestures demands active participation from the visitors, be it by entering, cowering down or listening. Moro's practice of sustained listening encourages us to heighten our attention, inviting us to become physically, intellectually and emotionally involved. In this way, listening becomes a shared experience.

Originally, Liliana Moro had planned to study scenography; although she later chose painting, her passion for the theatre remained. Her strong affinity for the poet and playwright Samuel Beckett, whose writing forms the basis for many of her works, testifies to this.

A production of Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in cooperation with PAC Milano, curated by Letizia Ragaglia.

Further venues: PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, and Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, NY.

The performance Studio per un probabile equilibrio in movimento conceived in collaboration with Virgilio Sieni in 1997 will be re-enacted in the side-light gallery at the opening.

The show is accompanied by a comprehensive publication.

The exhibition is under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Bern (CH).

Text by: Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein