Black Soil Poems

Galleria Borghese is delighted to present the first solo exhibition dedicated to Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu in Italy. Titled Black Soil Poems and curated by Cloé Perrone, the show will unfold throughout the entirety of Cardinal Scipione’s residence, from the galleries, façade, to the Secret Gardens. Conceived as a site-specific intervention, it challenges classical tradition through suspensions, fragmented forms, and newly imagined mythologies, establishing a multilayered dialogue between the artist’s contemporary language and the museum’s symbolic institutional authority. Like the recent show on the Baroque poet Giovan Battista Marino, this project also stems from the institution’s ongoing interest in poetry. The title evokes the dual nature of Mutu’s practice: poetic and mythological yet deeply connected to the social and material contexts of our time. "Black soil" — rich and malleable under the rain, almost like clay — appears across multiple geographies, including the Galleria Borghese’s Secret Gardens, which resonates with the artist’s imagination. From this soil, the sculptures seem to emerge, as if moulded by a primordial force, giving shape to stories, myths, memories, and poems. This metaphor underscores the generative and transformative power of her work; it is simultaneously rooted in materiality and open to multiple future interpretations.