Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy - by Francesco Ventrella & Giovanna Zapperi (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

For too long excluded from accounts of second-wave feminism, Carla Lonzi's challenging writing and radical collective practice receive eloquent reappraisal in this important collection. Driven by the search for women's autonomy and mutual recognition, Lonzi attempted to withdraw from oppressive patriarchal culture-a project that has profound contemporary resonance.
Helena Reckitt, Reader in Curating, Department of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

In taking a kaleidoscopic stance on the founding figure and central stakes of Italian separatist feminism, while addressing a broader English-speaking readership, Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy: The Legacy of Carla Lonzi is not only an impressive but also a timely editorial and research achievement.
Third Text

This eagerly anticipated volume offers prismatic perspectives on the work of Carla Lonzi, whose legacy as a writer and an activist could not be more relevant. These deeply researched and personally motivated essays deliver a thrilling contribution to feminist art history.
Julia Bryan-Wilson, Doris and Clarence Malo Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA

About the Author

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).