WANGECHI MUTU – BLACK SOIL POEMS

From June 10 to September 14, 2025, Galleria Borghese presents, for the first time within the residence of Cardinal Scipione, a solo exhibition by Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu, titled Black Soil Poems, curated by Cloé Perrone. Like the recently concluded exhibition dedicated to the Baroque poet Giovan Battista Marino, this project also stems from the museum’s ongoing interest in poetry. Conceived as a site-specific intervention, it unfolds throughout the museum’s interior galleries, its façade, and the Secret Gardens. It challenges classical tradition through suspensions, fragmented forms, and newly imagined mythologies, establishing a multilayered dialogue between the artist’s contemporary language and the symbolic institutional authority.

The title evokes the dual nature of Mutu’s practice: poetic and mythological, yet deeply connected to contemporary social and material contexts. “Black soil” — rich and malleable under the rain, almost like clay — appears across multiple geographies, including the Secret Gardens of the Galleria Borghese, which resonate with the artist’s imagination. From this soil, the sculptures seem to emerge, as if molded by a primordial force, giving shape to stories, myths, memories, and poems. The metaphor underscores the generative and transformative power of her work: rooted in materiality, yet open to multiple future interpretations.

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