The Genesi Association, in collaboration with the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation in Bologna and Opera Laboratori as part of the cultural project Genus Bononiae, is pleased to announce an important exhibition on the work of Louise Nevelson (born Lija Isaakivna Berljavs’ka, Kiev, 1899 - New York, 1988), one of the first female artists to receive solid recognition in the contemporary art system starting from the early 1940s thanks to her large monochrome black, white, and gold sculptures created with assemblages of recycled materials.

The exhibition, curated by Ilaria Bernardi, will be open from May 30 to July 20, 2025 in Bologna, in the rooms of the noble floor of Palazzo Fava decorated with the cycle of frescoes commissioned in 1584 to Ludovico, Annibale, and Agostino Carracci by the then owner of the building, Filippo Fava.

This is the first exhibition dedicated to Louise Nevelson in the city of Bologna and at the same time marks the 120th anniversary of her move from Kiev, where she was born, to the United States, where she reunited with her father who had emigrated there a few years earlier to escape the persecutory climate against Jews that had spread in her country of origin. The overseas move marked a turning point in the life of the very young Louise, who in the United States found her emancipation as a woman and her success as an artist.

With this project, the Genesi Association launches a series of monographic exhibitions dedicated to great artists who are now historicized, whose life and/or work can be interpreted ex-post as anticipating social issues that have become urgent today. If with her work made of daily scraps assembled, Louise Nevelson anticipated the theme of memory, with her personal life, opposing the conventions traditionally imposed on women of her time, she anticipated the crucial issue of the female condition today.