As part of the program for L’Aquila 2026, Italian Capital of Culture, the MuBAq – L’Aquila Children’s Museum presents *With Hands Stained with Earth, I Kissed You*, the first section of the Lea Contestabile Retrospective Exhibition, curated by Mariano Cipollini and supported and promoted by the City of L’Aquila.

“L’Antologica” is a widespread exhibition project spanning the entire year of 2026 across various institutional venues in L’Aquila and its province, each dedicated to a specific aspect of the artist’s work: approximately 50 works, mirroring the fifty years of artistic activity by Lea Contestabile (Ortucchio, 1949), a painter, printmaker, weaver, and founder of MuBAq, who ranks among the most significant figures in contemporary Abruzzo art both nationally and internationally. The works are selected not in chronological order but according to a dialogic approach, to highlight the forms, themes, and variety of material solutions that characterize her body of work.

On Friday, July 17, 2026, at 6:00 p.m., the first section of this exhibition will open. Hosted in the ten rooms of Palazzo Benedetti —reopened to the public for L’Aquila 2026—the exhibition is conceived as a journey through a lifetime: through tapestries, rugs, terracotta works, and sculptures, the artist weaves stories of memory, belonging, and place, in which earth and flesh, suffering, and the dignity of being become a visceral and inseparable bond.

FREE ADMISSION – JULY HOURS:
July 24–25: 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM
July 26: 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM / 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM
July 29–30: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
July 31: 5:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.