«Certainly art is a curious, singular act of expression,
but what can be said
about what is left,
I really can’t say what it is,
though
I can say what it represented for me.
A female companion for my journey,
a way to distance myself from solitude,
to mark the passing of time which sustained the possibility of a project
a compass capturing 3000 years of signifying layers!
The possibility to embrace the patterns created by the complexity of the outside world.
The levity of a gratuitous gift
which sparked my gratitude.
A cure,
a remedy for life!» 

Libera Mazzoleni, in Il pollo & l’arte, 2014


The artistic career of Libera Mazzoleni stands out for the variety of expressive forms explored (sculpture, photography, performance, painting) and for the constant critical reflection on artistic practise. Mazzoleni was born in Milan in 1949. After attending a classical lyceum she enrolled at the Brera Fine Arts Academy, graduating in 1970. From 1968 to 1973 she created coloured sculptures in polyester, their undulating profiles in stark contrast with the hierarchical and static nature of the monumental shapes of Minimal Art and in dialogue with the "fluid and progressive dimension of existence". She exhibited these works in many collective shows: at the Galleria San Fedele (Rassegna San Fedele 1 in 1970; Proposte Documenti - Rassegna San Fedele in 1971 and again in 1972), at the Parco Sempione (1971) in Milan, at the Grand Salon Ricards in Paris and at the Malta Society of Art in 1972.

In 1973 Mazzoleni held her first solo exhibit at the Palazzo dell’Argentario in Milan, where she displayed her sculptures in polyester, iron and polyurethane next to panels in Formica, where the lines forming the profiles of the sculptures are associated with photographs of parts of female bodies and with hand drawn sentences on being and identity. The following year she composed the book Linee Complessi Essere [Lines, Complexes, Being], where photography and writing create a line of research on identity and authenticity, which starts from the image of the naked body of the artist, portrayed in a crouched position and giving her back to us, on which Mazzoleni writes a speech expressing her opposition to an “abstract and impersonal concept of art”.

In 1976 the artist created Ulrike Meinhof, a photographic polyptych composed of various images – historical engravings showing witch hunts, photos of Meinhof, and portraits by the artist. The book was inspired by the news of the alleged suicide of the German journalist, revolutionary and terrorist of the R.A.F. (Rote Armee Fraktion). 

In 1977 Mazzoleni was invited by Romana Loda to take part in the exhibit Magma, at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona; that same year she also participated in the exhibit Il volto sinistro dell’arte [The sinister face of art], held in Florence and also curated by Loda. Here she displayed the series Luca, II – 49 [Luke, II 49]: sixteen photos where the words taken from the Gospel of Luke are erased and juxtaposed with different images, creating unexpected meanings which reveal the “excluding and misogynist nature” of the text while at the same time indicating other possibilities, in line with a feminist perspective of freedom from oppression. 

Mazzoleni’s research lead her to also experiment with performances: in Afanisi (Galleria Centrosei, Bari, 1977) she investigates the way Freudian psychoanalysis negates the singularity of female sexuality. Narciso contro Narciso [Narcissus against Narcissus], Galleria Comunale di Arte Moderna, Ancona (1979) deals with identity and the discovery of being and the development of the self, where the figure of Narcissus points to the destructive effects of the patriarchal system. 

In the 80s Mazzoleni created the series Oggetti inutili [Useless objects] (1980), “small monuments for the contemporary” composed of recycled and reused materials, and Superfici monocrome [Monochrome surfaces] (1985) in fibreglass, that nullify the image in a search that goes back to “the roots of the informal”. In the performances Consumarsi [Consuming oneself] (1981) and Frammenti [Fragments] (1989), the artist uses the gestuality of the body, the projection of images and a recording of her own voice to review key moments of Western culture, while the installations Stonehenge 2000 and Un luogo della memoria [A place of memory], both created in 1986, show an interest in mythology. These same issues are at the centre of the work produced in the following decade: the artist broadened her reflection on myth in the performance La danza della gru cieca [The dance of the blind crane] (1993), and further analysed "the contradictions of the Western cultural and technical development" in works such as Charlie e l’Amore [Charlie and love] (1999), which consist of an elaboration of photographic images of nuclear weapons and images taken from the film Two Faced Woman. 

Mazzoleni’s gaze is also directed towards some “problematic” places of the world, and gives life to projects that combine different means of expression: the memory of the holocaust permeates Vorrei incontrare il cuore del mondo [I would like to find the heart of the world] (1997), composed of paintings, a book of poems and a video called L’arte come rimedio al vivere [Art as a remedy for life] and also influences I muri della mente [The walls of the mind] (2006-2008), a work dedicated to the mechanisms of exclusion, negation and annihilation of “the other”, where the artistic operation becomes a “truth procedure”. Atlante del Mondo [World Atlas] (2006), along the same lines, is a project composed of a book by the artist, prints in PVC showing the world and the continents (Planisfero and Continenti), a video called Ma noi siamo qui per aiutarvi [We are here to help]; the work tells of a “lost” world and shows "the chaotic and ungovernable excess of reality that is disproportionally filled with objects exclusively connoted by their use value".

The femicides which took place in Ciudad Juàrez, Mexico, between 1993 and 2002, inspire the work Las Mariposas, created in 2008. The series is composed of a graphic and photographic elaboration of about six-hundred butterflies in forty-two frames; on the back of each frame there is the name of one of the six-hundred women who went missing. 

The critical interpretation of Western myths and existential issues concerning identity are central also in the more recent works by Mazzoleni. The artist reflects on the creative and artistic act and on the changes brought on by the development of technology in works such as Oh! L’identità [Oh! Identity] (2010), L’ultima cena [The last supper] (2014), and the performance Oggi, “Gli dei se ne sono andati” [Today, “the gods have left us”] (2015). 

Mazzoleni lives and works in Milan.