Simone Forti “Distant Lands”

Simone Forti’s latest exhibition, “Distant Lands,” at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, focuses on the convergence and exchange between Italy and California. The exhibition showcases Forti’s series of drawings titled News Animations, in which she explores the potential of language through movement, words, images, and sound. The drawings feature human figures, a tree, a crow, and lightning, alongside fragmented and covered-up words, reflecting the artist’s concern for language and media. Born in Florence in 1935, Forti migrated to Los Angeles in 1938 and studied with choreographer Anna Halprin, becoming a part of the Judson Dance Theater collective in the early 1960s. Forti’s interest in the movements and gestures of animals at the zoo inspired her acclaimed Dance Constructions, which led her to make photographs of the cats in the archeological area of Largo Argentina during her time in Rome. Recently, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles opened the largest exhibition on the West Coast dedicated to Forti’s groundbreaking practice.