Married to oneself

Joel Valabrega: Is there any female artist who has particularly inspired you or who has been, let’s say, your point of reference? 

Tomaso Binga: No. 

JV: Nora? 

Nora Turato: No. 

JV: Okay, you’re in sync!  

NT: I don’t look up to anyone; I don’t think anyone is special. Everyone is just a person. 

JV: So, Bianca, you began working in the art world under the name of Tomaso Binga in the early 1970s. In 1972, you presented your first performance, ‘Vista zero’ (Zero Visibility), and this made me think that performance has been important right from the start of your artistic career, and this in some ways relates to Nora Turato’s practice; she studied graphic design and so has always had a direct connection to the visual sphere, yet performance very quickly took on a central role for her too. I would be curious to know why this artistic discipline became so important in your practice and what was the origin, or the element, that sparked this need. 

TB: I was always performing. At the time, there was a moment when what was called Poetry Day became popular. From that moment on, everyone started writing poetry. Wherever we went we had to recite poems. It was a group I went around with, and so it was really an experience to touch with your hands, with your voice, you know what I mean? Objectively, it took a certain amount of courage because people would tell us to get lost, ‘We don’t want to hear poems!’ 

JV: Oh really?  

TB: We were not always welcomed. 

NT: People like to think that they make decisions: ‘Oh, I’m going to be a performance artist’ or ‘I’m going to work with words.’ But I think there’s something much deeper that draws you towards certain things. Others pick up on it, offer you opportunities and, before you know it, you find yourself being perceived as a performance artist, even though it was never something you consciously set out to become in the first place. 

Performing in front of a group of people is a strange thing to do. You’re placing yourself in a very stressful situation, on purpose. There’s something inside you that drives you to stand there and say, ‘Look at me, look at this.’ And language is, of course, also very much about expression. 

JV: You both have a spectacular ability to surprise the audience through changes in sound—based on how you’ve learned to modulate your voice—and by playing with different rhythms. Nora, if I recall correctly, when we met in 2021, you told me that you had started working with a voice coach, Julie Adams, because you felt the need to develop your work through focusing on the technical aspects of your voice. You said in an interview that ‘speaking is dancing,’ which I find a beautiful starting point. Could you tell us about the methods and processes that shape your practice? 

NT: If I consider speech a kind of dance, it is because speech is like a sequence of motor patterns. If you can change the way you talk, you change something about yourself, and you can sort of switch gears. It all relates to this belief in the illusion of a fixed self. I mean, that sense of being fully and consistently yourself is, in my opinion, an illusion, which means you can become other things as well. For me, that’s interesting because it’s about how, through the choreography of speech, posture and movement, you can become something other than what you thought you were. I am very grateful for how performance has helped me challenge all the narrow ideas I had about who and what I am.

JV: In the past, Bianca, you’ve taken your voice to a whole new dimension; you’ve used text and transformed your voice into something three-dimensional; you’ve managed to work with language at 360 degrees. Why do you think the voice is so important as a tool, and what has the word meant, and what does it mean, to you? 

TB: I created a body alphabet, which presents itself not only as a body but as language, because I mimicked the letters of the alphabet. Language becomes embodied; it becomes the body. That is precisely the core. Then there are other explorations, with the naked body, always paired with another body, two people who would come together and form letters of the alphabet in a somewhat baroque style; I developed various approaches. 

JV: So, do you also identify with the phrase ‘speaking is dancing’? 

TB: Yes, yes. But more than dancing, speaking is making oneself understood. Acting has always interested me, but gesture is not the predominant aspect of my work; it’s more the word and the sound … and the pauses. 

JV: And the pauses are fundamental. They also remind us of how much of a performance can resist capture. This makes me wonder about the relationship between the live arts and its traces. Earlier we talked about the importance of documentation, specifically photography and video. How important is photography to you, and the archiving and documentation of performances?  

TB: It is important now, but in the past, I didn’t document my work. I must be honest, partly because it was expensive, but perhaps also out of negligence.  

JV: Actually, I find this quite resonant. When we started researching the performance we brought to Mudam, there was very little documentation available. It was difficult to point to something and say, ‘That's exactly it.’ Yet I found something beautiful in that—the way absence can itself produce a kind of presence. It leaves room for imagination, interpretation and transmission. Given that, why was it so important to you at the time to make the work legible or understood by others? 

TB: During that period, in the 1970s, there was this, let’s say, feminist fervour, when we went everywhere reciting poems and shouting at men. It was a unique moment. Perhaps it emerged from that. 

JV: From a need to assert yourselves as women in a male-dominated world? 

TB: In fact, there were barely any women. Once someone looked at my paintings, was interested in buying them, but declared ‘isn’t Tomaso Binga a man? Oh, she’s a woman? Oh no. I don’t buy paintings by women.’ That was the response; I was there. 

Tiziana Di Caro: I think Nora wanted to know the reason behind the name Tomaso Binga.  

TB: Tomaso Binga comes from my uncle whose name was Tommaso, not from Tommaso Marinetti as I later falsely claimed! I had an uncle who was like a god to me. Though I would say it perhaps was both at once, you understand? 

NT: So, in a sense, the character of Tomaso Binga already existed as an idea when you were a child, as a projection of your uncle?

TB: Yes, it was a family name. My father was a failed artist, I must say, but he kept many art books, including many by Marinetti, so I’ve known him since I was little. 

JV: Have you ever thought about adopting a stage name, Nora? 

NT: When I was a teenager, I had one—I was making music under a male name. 

TB: Well, that’s nice! 

NT: I think there are a lot of similarities between us. 

JV: In the 1970s, was choosing to use a male name a strategy for you to be able to work?  

TB: No, no, many have adopted a male name to advance their careers but that wasn’t the reason; it was to challenge the male-dominated world on my own terms. 

JV: Was it accepted?  

TB: It was accepted by everyone, to tell the truth, because I always did fun things, even with my poetry. 

JV: And what about you, Nora? When did art strike you? 

NT: Writing, language, and performing has been with me since I was a child, but I never really thought I would be an artist.  

JV: Can you talk a bit about your relationship to the art world, Nora? One thing that strikes me is that you seem to have found a way of engaging with it on your own terms, rather than feeling the need to be present at every opening or event. How have you navigated that balance? 

NT: Art is a strange thing for me, because I’ve never been particularly invested in the art world itself. I ended up becoming an artist and working in the art world, yet I draw most of my inspiration and food for thought from elsewhere – my everyday surroundings, nature, literature, film, music, advertising and popular culture. I tend to get much more out of those things.

JV: I wonder what things were like back when you, Tomaso Binga, were actively involved in the art world? Were you well-received? Was it easy as a woman to attend art events even just as a spectator? 

TB: They liked me for two reasons: one, because my husband was an art critic. So, they courted me … And second, because I was fun. I didn’t do boring things, you know? Nor did I think I was some big shot. There are certain people who think they’re important. I felt like someone who played with art. 

NT: Not taking what you do too seriously is the key to doing interesting things. If you take art too seriously, you end up clinging to something that is too fixed and too rigid. Rigidity is the problem; allowing things to flow is key. I am not speaking of irony, but rather of a certain lightness and a capacity for reflection. Those are perhaps better words than ‘irony’, because even in its best sense, irony can have a dark side: it can become a way of hiding behind something, of avoiding confrontation, or of slipping into complacency.
That is why, in a way, one of the greatest blessings for me was not wanting to become an artist, and still becoming one anyway.

JV: Let’s say that Tomaso Binga now has become a role model for many young women artists who feel the need to continue resisting patriarchy, which, even though times have changed, remains very much present. As for Nora – I don’t know if feminism is a main focus of your work – but you have said that you descend from a family of tall, large women with strong voices, and you have translated this feminine strength into your artistic work. Could you both tell me what this struggle, let’s say this need to assert yourselves as women, has meant to you, and what feminism means to you today?  

TB: A total stance.  

JV: I wonder how you feel about it, going back to this idea of channelling the strength of women. How do you relate to feminism, Nora? 

NT: My situation is very different, precisely because of women like Bianca who came before me and laid much of the groundwork. I have benefited from a different set of opportunities, but also face a range of expectations and burdens, some of them very old and some of them totally new. I don’t think the work is nearly done, and there are still so many ways in which women’s experiences and contributions are overlooked or undervalued. I often find myself thinking about how gender has shaped my experience, especially coming from the very patriarchal Catholic environment of my home country, Croatia.

TB: The first strong impact I had on an audience was ‘Bianca Menna e Tomaso Binga Oggi spose’ (1977) (Bianca Menna and Tomaso Binga Brides Today).

JV: A marriage to yourself, it’s a mystical experience. 

TB: I held the marriage in a gallery, and they had invited a lot of people. Everyone brought me little gifts, sweets and other trinkets—a pipe, various odds and ends. Mostly they gifted me eggs. I received a huge number of eggs on the evening of my wedding. I placed all these gifts in a box and suspended the box from the ceiling of my house, it stayed there for many years. 

NT: ‘Oggi spose’ is an important artwork because it strives for a kind of wholeness. Often, when an artist creates a character that becomes successful, they can begin to live through it, eventually allowing it to take over. ‘Oggi spose’ feels important precisely because it interrupts that process. I don’t know whether Bianca would agree with that reading, but I wonder whether this work may even have saved Tomaso Binga.

JV: Both of you have a multidisciplinary practice, ranging from writing, poetry and painting to performance, and I wonder whether all that is, let's say, non-performative—the more material and tangible aspects of your work, the artifacts you have produced—has been necessary as a support for performance: to sustain a career as artists, to engage with the art market, to enter or re-enter the gallery system. Have these works functioned as a support for performance, or has performance functioned as a support for them? Or neither? 

NT: All aspects of my work come with challenges as well as opportunities. Performance, for me, is a beautiful trance state. It allows me to express myself, but it is also very intense and it makes me wonder: Why do you need this? Performance can be very taxing and, because of this, I need other mediums to express myself. With objects, I can visualise ideas and materialise them in the form I want. But that comes with its own complexities. Engaging with the market can influence how work is made, perceived and circulated in ways that are not always beneficial, but it can also create connections, provide resources and open new possibilities for the practice. Nothing is entirely bad, and nothing is entirely good. It is never just one thing. Over time, it reveals itself.

TDC: If there is one artist who has never looked at the market, it is Tomaso Binga.  

JV: Maybe in the 1970s there wasn’t this awareness so tied to the art market. 

TB: For heaven’s sake, it never was for me, and it still isn’t. 

TDC: Bianca, did you ever think of performance as something that might give you something in return? 

TB: No, absolutely not. 

JV: I work with many performance artists, and it sometimes seems that the conditions surrounding artistic production have changed. Today there is, understandably, a greater awareness that artistic labour should be compensated and valued as work. At the same time, I occasionally miss the sense of freedom and urgency that comes from wanting to make and share something simply because it feels necessary. How do you see this balance between artistic commitment and the economic realities of being an artist today? 

NT: I think these things are deeply connected rather than separate. Artists need the sense of freedom to make work, but they also need to survive, and we are living in increasingly expensive times. This inevitably influences the work and that doesn’t necessarily mean the work is bad. 

For me, it helps to be clear about the different contexts in which I work. Not every work comes from the same place or serves the same purpose, and it is often a matter of navigating different expectations, opportunities and responsibilities while staying connected to what really matters. Sometimes this is very easy; sometimes it gets really hard. Sometimes, precisely this tension, in a very unexpected way, yields a great artwork.

I think it’s important to be honest with yourself about the choices you make and the reasons behind them. Artistic integrity is not necessarily about protecting the work from every outside influence, but rather about remaining conscious of your values and choices, and finding a way to sustain both your practice and yourself over time.

JV: Bianca, finally, what advice would you give to Nora Turato as a young woman artist? 

TB: I’d give her the wrong advice! Everything I do goes to waste; I don’t get paid for what I do. I’ve never asked anyone for a penny. And I’d do the same things all over again. That’s just how I am. 

The conversation between artists Tomaso Binga (b. 1931, Salerno, Italy) and Nora Turato (b. 1991, Zagreb, Croatia), and curator Joel Valabrega, took place in Rome in 2024 on the occasion of Binga and Turato's participation in the exhibition A Model at Mudam Luxembourg (9 February–8 September 2024). The conversation is published here for the first time in Mudam Journal. It was translated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue and edited by Marie-Alix Isdahl.

Read more about Mudam Journal.