THE DIVIDED SELF
Self-Portrait in Fragments
Letizia Rostagno
Curated by: Giorgio Bonomi
In collaboration with: Alberto Desirò of AD Gallery
Venue: Galleria La Zaffera, Via Guelfa 45R, Florence
Dates: 12 September – 3 October 2026
Project presentation, AD Gallery
AD Gallery is pleased to present “The Divided Self. Self-Portrait in Fragments,” a solo exhibition by Letizia Rostagno curated by Giorgio Bonomi, on view at Galleria La Zaffera in Florence from 12 September to 3 October 2026.
The project brings together and puts into dialogue some of the most significant strands of the artist's research on self-portraiture, centred on the Diorami series — digital prints on overlapping acetate sheets set in handcrafted wooden frames — alongside new photographic works that continue her investigation of the body, the fragmentation of identity, and the female condition.
Rostagno has worked with AD Gallery for years, which has accompanied her exhibition path in Italy and abroad, and this show marks a further stage in the continuity and deepening of that shared work, as well as an opportunity to present Florentine audiences with a broad and coherent selection of her most recent production.
The exhibition is curated by Giorgio Bonomi, who also wrote the critical essay, and will be accompanied by a bilingual Italian–English catalogue.
From the curator's text, Giorgio Bonomi
THE DIVIDED SELF - SELF-PORTRAIT IN FRAGMENTS
[…] Artists practice self-portraiture in different ways: portraying themselves in full figure, hidden, through parts of their body, nude, clothed, disguised, and so on.
Rostagno photographs herself mainly in parts, above all the feet, portions of the legs, the eyes, the wrinkles of the skin. The choice is not casual; it is theoretically grounded.
The feet, in fact, are the organ of the human body that allows movement and, at the same time, allows the whole body to stand firmly still; the eyes are what allow us to see and to be seen in depth (as the saying goes: "to look deep into someone's eyes"); wrinkles not only mark the skin but indicate "time," an element which, together with "space," is where human life and things unfold.
The representation of one's own "divided self" through parts recalls the well-known theory, already present in ancient Greek philosophy, of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm, whereby the latter is contained within the former; we might equally speak of the dialectic between presence and absence.
[…] Representing oneself in parts rather than in one's completeness can certainly signal a subject's difficulty in finding their own identity, but this is not the case with Rostagno. If we paraphrase the dialectic between "strong thought" and "weak thought," we might say that there is a photography — and therefore also a self-portrait — that is "strong" and one that is "weak," and our artist's work undoubtedly belongs to the former. […] Well then, the lesson — without any didactic intent — to be drawn from Letizia Rostagno's works, beyond the aesthetic pleasure of their excellent formal execution — and art is always, in the Crocean sense, form and content — lies in the fact that proposing one's own identity, first to oneself and then to others, requires a kind of "audacity," and that even though the self is fragmented, one can always rediscover one's own subjectivity, complex yet compact, since it is not a mere sum of parts but their dialectical overcoming, achieving a synthesis, a totality, and arriving at a definition of "person": and here the discourse returns to where we started, for "person," in its original meaning (Etruscan, Greek and Latin), means "mask," and, as we have said, the self divides not only into parts but also by "distancing" itself from itself, precisely by taking on one or more "masks," without thereby erasing or annulling the subject's ontological identity.
Rostagno, then, suggests to us how to live the divided self — not as a Freudian, schizophrenic condition, but as a reality to be accepted and one that can be overcome, without drama or tragedy.
Event programme
EVENT "THE DIVIDED SELF"
Solo exhibition by Letizia Rostagno, curated by Giorgio Bonomi, Galleria La Zaffera, Florence
12.09 > 03.10.2026
Vernissage: Saturday 12 September 2026, 18:00 > 20:00
Finissage: Sunday 4 October 2026, 17:00 > 20:00
12.09.2026, Opening at 18:00. Introduction by Alberto Desirò, remarks by curator Giorgio Bonomi and artist Letizia Rostagno. Maria Grazia Dainelli, editor-in-chief of the contemporary art and current affairs magazine La Toscana Nuova, will attend.
19.09.2026, 17:00. Part of the Estate Fiorentina programme: EMOTIONS AND STORIES OF FRAGILE SOULS. Starting from the pages of the novel "La stagione delle anime fragili" ("The Season of Fragile Souls") by Francesca Tofanari, a literary reading that becomes a shared journey through word, emotion and listening, under the banner of the feminine. An invitation to narrate one's own fragilities as a space of strength, truth and rebirth, concluding with the collective creation of the Tree of Emotions, an art installation made by designer Patrizia Angotti from recycled materials, in which words collected on recycled paper become leaves — an expression of care for oneself, for others and for the environment. With Francesca Tofanari (journalist, author), Flavia Pezzo (actress), Patrizia Angotti (artist).
26.09.2026, 17:00. Presentation of the book "Elogio della tracotanza" ("In Praise of Audacity") by Giuseppe Leonelli, journalist and writer, author of numerous books spanning essays, fiction and volumes tied to the Modena area. "Elogio della tracotanza," published by Edizioni EtaBeta, explores the desire to overcome one's own limits in order to define one's identity, through the stories of figures and authors such as Roberto Baggio, Marco Pantani, Tolstoy and Ligabue.
04.10.2026, 17:00. AD Gallery Lab: when the image becomes a work of art. Fine Art Printing workshop with Jacopo Bellapianta.
Opening hours: Thursday to Sunday, 16:30 > 19:30.