LIECHTENSTEIN.- Active audience participation and the practice of listening are defining features of Liliana Moro’s work (b. 1961 in Milan). This major solo show will span the period from the artist's early work in the late 1980s to her current output, featuring several works created especially for the show. At the same time, the retrospective exhibition probes a fundamental aspect of Liliana Moro's work: sound.

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein holds a considerable number of Italian artworks in its collection, mostly from the Arte Povera movement. Liliana Moro trained at the Brera Academy in Milan under the tuition of Luciano Fabro – at a time when Arte Povera was finding its way into art academies and museum collections and a process of gradual historicisation 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.

The practices of listening and engagement with the audience are defining features of Liliana Moro’s work. For the first time, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein is now devoting a major solo show to the artist, who was born in Milan in 1961. The show spans the period from her early work of the late 1980s to her current output, and it also includes a number of new works. Above all, this retrospective exhibition probes a fundamental aspect of Moro’s work: sound. Borrowed from the world of music, the title alludes to this.

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein holds a considerable number of Italian artworks in its collection, above all from the arte povera movement. Moro trained at the Brera Academy, Milan – at a time (towards the later 1980s) when arte povera was finding its way into art academies and museum collections and a process of historicization was just beginning. With this display, Kunstmuseum is presenting an Italian artist from the subsequent generation. Her work arose in the moment of a violent breakaway from the past and from a desire for freedom beyond the questions of the time. ‘We were free and we were individualists’, as Moro says.

'The thread that runs through this exhibition is sound. Almost inevitably, sound has a public dimension, sound is ‘free space’.' – Liliana Moro

The exhibition’s theme is immediately clear in the foyer of the museum, where a two-metre-high blue neon ear (Ascolto, 2006) welcomes visitors and points out the central importance of listening. The new work Fischio #4 (2023) can be heard on the stairs leading to the Skylight galleries: the artist’s whistle – triggered by a sensor – accompanies the audience on their way into the exhibition.
The show begins with Spazi (2019), a work based on Moro’s practice of making models of the many places where she has exhibited; the museum also features among the detailed miniature exhibitions.

In Moi (2012) – a circle of twelve speakers on stands – the artist’s voice resounds again. She recites fragments from a review of her 1997 performance Studio per un probabile equilibrio in movimento. Moro took on the challenge of reciting the text for the exhibition in German without knowing the language.

In a work from 2001, that she entitled “ “ (i.e., a space in quotation marks), the audience is challenged to walk on broken transparent glass. Moro’s installation combines both physical and acoustic elements as the loud steps on the glass cause visitors to modify their movements and their posture.

In Quattro Stagioni (2014), a building site table, chairs and parasols make up an inviting installation with a summery touch. This is accompanied by the song Bella Ciao (...senza fine, 2010) in various languages. ‘Quattro Stagioni has the flavour of the provinces, that of the songs of the partisans, but also smacks of the seaside, the Adriatic coast’, Milovan Farronato writes in the exhibition catalogue.

Trips on the Milan Metro inspired the artist to create a new work Le Nomadi (2023). On the trains she encountered various ‘nomads’ making music and singing, people with no fixed abode travelling with their scant belongings. As so often in Moro’s work, the sculpture, consisting of luggage trolleys, reflects everyday, human aspects with a melancholy undertone.

From her early beginnings until the present, 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, 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. Beckett freed the stage from all excess, even using the stage’s space as a sculptural element. Moro shares Beckett’s all- embracing view of space and body in space. For example, in his Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), an elderly man listens to a recording of his own voice; this listening forms the starting point for Moro’s new artwork Andante con moto (2023).

Liliana Moro (*1961 in Milan) studied painting at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. She was co- founder of the artist-run exhibition space Spazio di via Lazzaro Palazzi and editor of Tiracorrendo magazine (1989–93). Her works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in numerous institutions, including: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2021); Italian Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale (2019); Milan Triennale (2015); MAMbo, Bologna (2013); Quadriennale di Roma (1996 and 2008); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2008); MoMA PS1, New York (1999); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1998); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1994 and 2021); Aperto, 45th Venice Biennale (1993); Documenta IX, Kassel (1992). She lives and works in Milan.

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
Liliana Moro Andante con moto
November 19th, 2023 – April 1st, 2024
Curated by Letizia Ragaglia

Opening with performance: Saturday, 18 November 2023, 5.30pm