A new exhibition dedicated to Italian artist Carol Rama has opened at Palazzo de’ Rossi in Pistoia, around 35 kilometres north-west of Florence, bringing her work back to the Tuscan city more than 60 years after an important exhibition there in 1965.
In Visita | Carol Rama, which runs from October 3, 2026 to February 14, 2027, presents seven works made between the early 1950s and the mid-1970s. Six come from the Gallerie d’Italia – Intesa Sanpaolo collections and one from a private collection.
The exhibition is the fifth edition of In Visita, a project by Fondazione Pistoia Musei with the collaboration of Fondazione Caript that places temporary displays within the permanent 20th-century collections at Palazzo de’ Rossi. It is curated by Monica Preti, the foundation’s director general, and Annamaria Iacuzzi, curator of its 20th-century collections.
From abstraction to found materials
Born in Turin in 1918, Rama developed an independent body of work over a career that explored the body, desire, illness and identity. The Pistoia exhibition concentrates on a period of roughly two decades and follows changes in both her materials and visual language.
The earliest works date from Rama’s involvement with the Turin branch of the Movimento Arte Concreta, or MAC, in the 1950s. Senza titolo (1952) and Composizione 71 (1955) document her experiments with abstraction during this period.
The exhibition then moves into the 1960s, when Rama increasingly incorporated unconventional materials and everyday objects into her work.
Among the pieces is Senza titolo (1961), a mixed-media work in which painting is combined with heterogeneous materials. These experiments developed into the works that writer and intellectual Edoardo Sanguineti described as “Bricolages” in the 1960s.
One of them has a particular connection with Pistoia. Senza titolo (Bricolage R 4), from 1964, was included in Rama’s 1965 solo exhibition at the Sala Ghibellina in Pistoia’s Palazzo Comunale. It has now returned to the city on loan from a private collection.
A return to Pistoia after more than 60 years
The 1965 exhibition gives the new show an important local context. It was Rama’s first solo exhibition organised by a public museum.
Sanguineti played an important role in that event, presenting Rama’s work in Pistoia after becoming interested in her artistic research during the previous years. The current exhibition therefore reconnects the artist not only with the city but with an earlier stage in the public recognition of her work.
The later works show another shift in materials. By the 1970s Rama was experimenting with bicycle inner tubes, applying rubber to canvas in compositions such as Luogo e segni and Smentire il bianco. Another strand of her work from the period involved thread sewn onto fabric, part of the group of works known as her “diagrams”.
Rather than presenting a full retrospective, the Pistoia exhibition uses this small group of works to examine less familiar phases of Rama’s career and to place them alongside artists represented in Palazzo de’ Rossi’s permanent collection.
A programme running into 2027
A programme of talks and guided visits accompanies the exhibition.
Events include a discussion on Rama’s work at Palazzo Fabroni on October 24 and a November 14 meeting devoted to the artist’s Turin home, where she lived and worked for more than 70 years. A further event on January 30, 2027 will examine the role of the sign in the work of Rama and Maria Lai.
The curators will also lead visits to the exhibition on November 8, January 16 and February 14. The final event is scheduled to include artist Zoè Gruni, who met Rama while working on a thesis devoted to her.
A bilingual Italian-English book has also been published by Gli Ori alongside the exhibition. The 144-page volume contains texts by Monica Preti, Maria Grazia Messina and Annamaria Iacuzzi.
Practical information
In Visita | Carol Rama
Palazzo de’ Rossi – Collezioni del Novecento
Via de’ Rossi 26, Pistoia
October 3, 2026 – February 14, 2027
(Photos: Installation view of In visita | Carol Rama, Palazzo de’ Rossi, Pistoia, 2026. Photo Lorenzo Marianeschi for Fondazione Pistoia Musei)
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Eirini Lavrentiadou is an actress and singer, born in Thessaloniki in 1992. She lives in Florence, where she trained at the city’s Theatre Academy and the Fiesole School of Music. She has performed in classical Greek and European plays, worked with international directors and companies, and appeared in concerts ranging from opera to jazz. She contributes to Florence Daily News as a writer and social media creator.
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