Tommaso Binga Biography
Tomaso Binga, stage name of Bianca Pucciarelli Menna, was born in Salerno in 1931. She had a classical education and since she was a child she cultivated a passion for poetry and figurative art, influenced above all by her father. After about a decade spent in Uruguay as a designer and decorator, in 1972 she began to use desemantized writing, a type of automatic writing that allowed her to overcome linguistic rules and free herself from the meaning of words through illegibility. Among his early works are Polistiroli, Analogic Portraits and Desemantized Writing. During his artistic career, he chose to use the pseudonym Tomaso Binga to explore the role of women in the culture of the time, questioning the privileges reserved for male artists in the art world. In 1976 he created the famous Living Scripture series, in which he used his naked body to create the letters of the alphabet, as gestural signs. This project was created thanks to the collaboration with the photographer Verita Monselles. The series was an opportunity to reflect on the close link between the body of the word and the body of the woman, both bearers of profound and powerful meanings. In 2019, the artist was called by Maria Grazia Chiuri to reinterpret the Living Scripture series as part of the Dior autumn-winter fashion show. This collaboration gave life to a large installation entitled Monumental Poetic Alphabet, made up of photographs of the woman's body that form the letters of the alphabet. The work was exhibited in the gardens of the Musée Rodin and accompanied by the recitation of a feminist poem. Binga has always shown great sensitivity to women's demands and frequented the Roman group in via del Beato Angelico, an important cultural center founded by Carla Accardi, Suzanne Santoro and Nedda Guidi. He also appreciated the audacity and determination of the gallery owner Romana Pace and the curator Mirella Bentivoglio in promoting women's art.
