Rä di Martino

Rä di Martino was born in Rome and studied in London, graduating with an MFA from the Slade School of Art. She won a fellowship at Columbia University and spent five years in New York before returning to Italy.

Her practice explores the passage of time and the discrepancies between epic narratives and lived experiences. Her works often balance pathos with a certain detachment, disrupting the synchronicity between image and text.

Her films, video installations, and photographs have been presented at institutions and festivals including MoMA PS1 (New York), Tate Modern (London), NiMK Netherlands Media Arts (Amsterdam), MCA (Chicago), Palazzo Grassi–Punta della Dogana (Venice), Artists Space (New York), Museion (Bozen), Magasin (Grenoble), Busan Biennial, Manifesta, Torino International Film Festival, Kino der Kunst (Munich), Viper Basel, and Transmediale (Berlin).

In 2014 she presented her first medium-length documentary The Show MAS Go On at the Venice International Film Festival, winning the Gillo Pontecorvo Award, the SIAE Award, and a Nastro d’Argento for Best Documentary. In 2018 her first feature film Controfigura—winner of the Eurimages Lab Award—premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for a Nastro d’Argento. In 2018–19 she won the MIBAC Italian Council Award and developed the installation and book Afterall, shown at Mattatoio (Rome) and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (Zurich, 2020). The same year, her solo exhibition at Museo del Novecento, Florence, with the work L’eccezione, received the first Lio Capital Award.

In 2021 she directed the experimental documentary Fuori dai teatri, inspired by the archive of the Teatro di Pontedera. In 2022 she presented solo exhibitions at Forte Belvedere (Florence) and Torre Matta (Otranto) with a new work on Carmelo Bene commissioned by Museo Castromediano di Lecce / Archivio Carmelo Bene.