Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy

A renowned art critic of the 1960s, Carla Lonzi abandoned the art world in 1970 to found Rivolta Femminile, a pioneering feminist collective in Italy. Rather than separating the art world luminary from the activist, however, this book looks at the two together. It demonstrates that even as Lonzi refused art, she articulated how feminist spaces and communities drew strength from creativity. The eleven essays in this book document the artistic and feminist circles of postwar Italy, a time characterised both by radical protest and avant-garde aesthetics, using primary and archival sources never before translated into English. They map Lonzi's deep connections to the influential Italian Arte Povera movement, and explore her complicated relationship with female artists of the time, such as Carla Accardi and Suzanne Santoro. Carla Lonzi's written work and activism represents a crucial, but previously overlooked, feminist intervention in traditional art history from beyond the Anglo-American canon. This book is a timely and urgent addition to our understanding of radical politics, separatist feminism and art criticism in the postwar period.

Francesco Ventrella is Lecturer in Art History at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the co-editor with Meaghan Clarke of Women and the Culture of Connoisseurship, a special issue of Visual Resources (2017).

Giovanna Zapperi is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Tours, France. She is the author of the award-winning study L'artiste est une femme: La modernité de Marcel Duchamp(2012) and of Carla Lonzi: Un'arte della vita (2017).

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Against Culture: Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy, F Ventrella (University of Sussex, UK) and G Zapperi (Université de Tours, France) Art Writing Against Art 1. Carla Lonzi: Encountering American Art, Judith Russi Kirshner (Independent Scholar, USA) 2. Magnetic Encounters: Listening to Carla Lonzi's Tape Recordings, Francesco Ventrella (University of Sussex, UK) 3. (Post-)Normative Silence, Sabeth Buchman (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria) Creativity and the Feminist Subject 4. The Making of a Feminist Subject. Autonomy, Authenticity and Withdrawal, Giovanna Zapperi (Université de Tours, France) 5. Turbulence Zone: Diasporic Resonances Across Carla Lonzi's Archive, Liliana Ellena (European University Institute, Italy) 6. 'I Thought Art Was For Women': Interview, Suzanne Santoro (Independent Scholar, Italy) Art as Relation 7. The End of an Affair: Carla Lonzi and the Politics of Rapporto, Leslie Cozzi (Baltimore Museum of Art, USA) 8. Reimagining the Family Album: Carla Lonzi's Autoritratto, Teresa Kittler (University of York, UK) 9. The Beato Angelico Cooperative. A Feminist Art Space in Rome, Katia Almerini (Independent Scholar, UK) Genealogies and Resonances 10. Free Escape, Elisabeth Lebovici (Independent Scholar, France) 11. Feminism and Art ca.1970: Writing [Art] Otherwise, Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds, UK) Index