Alongside David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio and Titan’s Sacred and Profane Love, Wangechi Mutu’s exhibition Black Soil Poems now sits at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, a modern collection holding space for the often underrepresented. This exhibit, on display through September 14, marks the gallery’s first solo exhibition by a living female artist and brings together past and present voices in this historic and grandiose space.
The title of the exhibition, Black Soil Poems, connects both to the material and the imaginary. Outside the museum walls, in the secret garden, Mutu’s sculptures emerge from black soil, as if created by celestial means to tell mythical stories woven from poetry. The blend between these two themes set the tone for the collection, with works inside the gallery suspended from the ground — and from reality.
Through fragmentation, Mutu’s pieces challenge the hierarchy of the Borghese establishment and invite imagination. As a female Kenyan-American artist, Mutu’s work often focuses on race and gender, themes rarely present in the traditional works on display at the gallery. This juxtaposition, as 16th and 17th-century pieces share space with modern installations, opens new discourse surrounding the coexistence of the former and the present.
This exhibition comes on the heels of the gallery’s 2024 show Louise Bourgeois: Unconscious Memories, a collection that featured female artists from across the world. Both showings encourage diverse conversation across generations and backgrounds as a part of the museum's ongoing quest to adapt through time and maintain fluidity as society moves forward.
The exhibition Black Soil Poems by Wangechi Mutu is on view through September 14 at Galleria Borghese, Piazzale Scipione Borghese, 5, 00197 Roma, Italy.
