Una movida Bárbara. Fotografie di Ouka Leele

The Museo di Roma in Trastevere hosts the first Italian solo exhibition of the iconic Madrid artist as part of the cycle dedicated to the cultural movement of the 1980s, realised in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in Rome.

The exhibition is an evocative testimony of Ouka Leele's long and extraordinary career, from 1978 to 2014, through photographs, silkscreens, such as the Floreale and El Cantar de los Cantares series, documentary material, proofs, catalogues, posters and merchandising material produced with her images. 

More than 100 artworks of different sizes, formats and techniques - some of them original - are on display, starting with the images from Peluqueria, her first Madrid exhibition, to those from A donde la luz me lleve, the latest series created in 2014 in the Asturias region, up to the splendid Menina Liberada, the only work by a female photographer on permanent display at the Prado Museum in Madrid.

The artist captured the public's attention at the beginning of 1980, when, still unknown, yellow stickers appeared in the streets of the Spanish capital with an inscription about her first exhibition in the city. 
Original, creative, innovative, Bárbara Allende Gil de Biedma, the artist's real name, immediately stood out for her unprecedented style: the black and white photographs, enlivened by intense and warm colours, the staging of her works, with their eccentric names, the creation of the domestic mystique, with which she made common everyday objects such as razors and irons the protagonists of the artwork, the extreme creative freedom in all her projects - paintings, pictures, portraits, murals, posters, illustrations, poems. 

Hers is an exceptional artistic story: she was one of the contemporary artists to make photography a true art form in Spain and received numerous awards, including the prestigious National Photography Award in 2005. Disappeared in 2022, the great photographer, painter, illustrator and author devoted her last years to painting.  

The exhibition, promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali and organised by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain and Caravan, is curated by María Rosenfeldt - Ouka Leele's daughter - and Silvia Oviaño. 

Ouka Leele's exhibition catalogue available in PDF format

Photo: HERIDA COMO LA NIEBLA POR EL SOL, 1987 - Copia de fotografía en blanco y negro pintada a mano con acuarela, impresión digital sobre papel de algodón Hahnemühle