BOOK. THIS IS THE BEST ARTWORK

LIUBA

THIS IS THE BEST ARTWORK

CRITIC TEXT BY LUCA PANARO

CAMPANOTTO EDITORE, 2023

Bilingual edition ita/eng

The book is completed by LIUBA’s exclusive videos of the project
available via QR code.

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THIS IS THE BEST ARTWORK is a photographic/narrative book by artist LIUBA, published by Campanotto editore in 2023.

This is the Best Artwork is about the universal theme of the birth of a child and the miracle of life. A son who arrived as a gift when the artist was at a mature age with a career spanning over almost 30 years.

The book collects images from the performance piece created by LIUBA at the opening of the Venice Biennale in 2019, alternated with passages of the artist’s diary. The passages retrace with intimate, confidential and delicate tones, moments from the artist’s pregnancy to the birth of her son Sole. Behind-the-scenes stories together with exclusive videos of the project complete this book.

“The artist does not shy away from telling her story: in fact, she turns it into a work of art. Never as in This is the Best Artwork has LIUBA exposed herself in the first person, showing her greatest love to her public. She does so with the language which has always been unique to her style, namely with her body, a body exposed to the audience and performing in places of art. (…) An experience many women share becomes universal by means of the visual language, acquiring new meaning, turning itself into images, and exercising the power of art to the fullest. Sun is born! Even before he saw the light, he was an artwork. The best one. (Luca Panaro)

“Preparing this art project and its realization was special and complex, as is the occasion for which it was born. – says LIUBA – The idea came suddenly as a visual apparition at the beginning of my pregnancy. It was the challenge that I could not fail to do, because it was an act of love for Sole and for the world.

I started working on it several months earlier, focusing on the design of the sculpture-dress I had in mind for the performance piece: sketches, drafts, studies. Then I started searching for a pattern maker-seamstress, happily found in Valentina Donadel”.

Interspersing the photographs of the performance, the volume collects excerpts from the artist’s diary, which retrace the entire period of pregnancy up to the birth of her son Sole in an intimate, confidential and delicate tone.

In these lines, LIUBA writes about her emotions, fears and hopes of the journey that is about to begin – from a strictly personal point of view which however manages to intercept a universal feeling.

This is the Best Artwork comes from the desire of sharing an intense individual journey, in its moments of immense joy and in its difficulties, hoping to give to other people and other women the force to take the first step towards a big desire – even when it seems too late.

“LIUBA proudly displays her trophy while wearing a long white dress especially designed for the occasion, a dress with the title of the project written on its circular edge. The focus, however, is on another circle, the one showing her naked belly, the baby bump around which the whole performance revolves. LIUBA is a mother and an artist, the perfect fusion of art and life, but with that special passion for staging, for the coup de théâtre, for the performance, given in the first person and organized to perfection, the fil rouge that holds her research together.” (Luca Panaro)

The volume is bilingual, with texts in both Italian and English, and is accompanied by a critical text by Luca Panaro, a longtime collaborator of the artist, who critically examines the whole project.

The book is completed by LIUBA’s exclusive unpublished videos of the project – available via QR code.