Tomaso Binga

Tomaso Binga (Salerno 1931) – stage name of Bianca Pucciarelli Menna – is an artist, poet and performer who lives and works in Rome. In ’71 he exhibited for the first time in the exhibition Tomaso Binga – the reactive object at the L’Oggetto Gallery in Caserta and assumed the masculine pseudonym that would be an inseparable element of his artistic “doing.”

That same year, she embarked on an artistic and poetic exploration focused on Verbo-Visual Writing and Sound-Performative Poetry, two fundamental areas of research that she pursued with remarkable rigor and consistency throughout her career. In the first phase of his career he works particularly with “desemantized” writing (a seemingly dysfunctional and asemic graphic sign). In the same year he began his performance actions with Words to Preserve Words to Destroy.

In 1976 he would complete a series of works that would remain a cornerstone of his artistic research: namely, his “living writings” (letters of the alphabet formed with his own naked body presented at the Mater |Ecce homo exhibition in Padua) and the famous “wallpaper”. Also in ’76, Mirella Bentivoglio invited him to participate in the group exhibition Tra linguaggio e immagine (Galleria il Canale, Venice) and, two years later, she involved him in the exhibition Materializzazione del linguaggio that she curated for the Venice Biennale, where Binga presented his famous Dattilocodice.

She has taken part in numerous exhibitions and cultural initiatives, including Magma, a three-edition showcase curated by Romana Loda (1975–77); Linee della Ricerca Artistica in Italia 1960–80 at Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (1981); the 16th São Paulo Biennial (1981); and the 11th Rome Quadriennale (1986); Poesia Totale at Palazzo della Ragione (Mantua,1998); Diary of a Marriage, “La Sapienza,” (Rome, 2005); Prefigure, Wunderkammern (Rome, 2011); Tomaso Binga. Carta da parato 40 anni dopoat Galleria Ciocca in Milan (2016); MAGMA. Body and word in women’s art between Italy and Lithuania from 1965 to the present. at Palazzo Poli in Rome (2018); Storie in gioco at Galleria Erica Ravenna in Rome (2018); Corporale at Galleria Erica Ravenna in Rome (2018); The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy. at FM in Milan (2019); Le muse sono donne at Teatro Argentina in Rome (2021); the Venice Biennale (2022); Tomaso Binga, Scrivo di proprio pugno Erica Ravenna Gallery (Rome, 2022); Making One. From the word to the sign of a possible dialogue , Galleria Erica Ravenna (Rome, 2023); Vincenzo Agnetti – Tomaso Binga | Una macchina è una macchina, Galleria Erica Ravenna (Rome, 2024). Upcoming: FLORA. The enchantment of flowers in Italian art from the twentieth century to the present, at Fondazione Magnani-Rocca in Parma and Tomaso Binga at Museo Madre in Naples.

He has participated in numerous mail art exhibitions and radio broadcasts; he has published artist’s books and been a member of a variety of sound and performance poetry groups. His works can be found in numerous museums and galleries in Italy and abroad.