The Unexpected Subject: 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy

FM Center for Contemporary Art presents The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy, a new exhibition curated by Marco Scotini and Raffaella Perna, proposing for the first time a wide-ranging investigation and a precise reconstruction of the relationship between visual arts and feminist movement in Italy, identifying in 1978 the catalyst year of all energies in play (not only in Italy). The exhibition is realized in collaboration with MART Museum of Trento and Rovereto and Frittelli Arte Contemporanea. The catalogue will be edited by the media partner Flash Art. The exhibition is sponsored by Dior.

In June 1978, with the exhibition Materialization of Language curated by Mirella Bentivoglio, over 80 women artists make their entrance to the Venice Biennale for the first time, loudly claiming space and visibility in a place traditionally very difficult for women to conquer. In the same edition of the Biennale, an anthological exhibition was dedicated to Ketty La Rocca. At the Magazzini del Sale, the Biennale also gave space to the “Immagine” group of Varese and the “Women / Image / Creativity” group of Naples.

This year also marks the closing of some important experiences related to art and women’s movement. In 1978 the group Cooperativa Beato Angelico in Rome—the first artistic space entirely run by women, fueled by Carla Accardi after the end of her collaboration with Carla Lonzi—interrupted its activities. Still in 1978, Romana Loda, curator and gallerist of Brescia, organized The Left Face of Art, the last of some landmark exhibitions organized throughout the decade, including Coazione a Mostrare and Magma, in which Italian women artists were presented together with the most significant artists of the European scene.

The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy will present for the first time one of the most interesting scenes of experimental research in the 1970s to the international public, highlighting the centrality of women in the Italian art scene of that period, and their exchanges with the artistic panorama of Europe and beyond. The exhibition criticizes the mainstream historical-critical view that relegates women artists to a marginal position. The works will be lend by private collections and institutions, the artists and their archives and important Italian public institutions and museums, like the MART Museum of Trento and Rovereto, MADRE Museum of Napoli, CAMeC of La Spezia.

“We recognize within ourselves the capacity for effecting a complete transformation of life. Not being trapped within the master-slave dialectic, we become conscious of ourselves; we are the Unexpected Subject.” (Carla Lonzi, Let’s Spit on Hegel, 1974).

Exhibited artists: Marina Abramović, Carla Accardi, Paola Agosti, Bundi Alberti, Annalisa Alloatti, Liliana Barchiesi, Mirella Bentivoglio, Valentina Berardinone, Cathy Berberian, Renate Bertlmann, Tomaso Binga, Irma Blank, Diane Bond, Marcella Campagnano, Françoise Canal, Lisetta Carmi, Paula Claire, Mercedes Cuman, Dadamaino, Betty Danon, Hanne Darboven, Agnese De Donato, Jole De Freitas, Agnes Denes, Chiara Diamantini, Neide Dias de Sá, Lia Drei, Anna Esposito, Amelia Etlinger, Maria Ferrero Gussago, Giosetta Fioroni, Simone Forti, Rimma Gerlovina, Natal’ja Sergeevna Gončarova, Nicole Gravier, Pat Grimshaw, Bohumila Grögerová, Gruppo Femminista “Immagine” (Silvia Cibaldi, Milli Gandini, Clemen Parrocchetti, Mariuccia Secol, Mariagrazia Sironi), Gruppo “Donne/Immagine/Creatività” (Mathelda Balatresi, Ela Caroli, Rosa Panaro, Bruna Sarno, Anna Trapani), Gruppo XX (Mathelda Balatresi, Antonietta Casiello, Rosa Panaro, Mimma Sardella), Nedda Guidi, Elisabetta Gut, Micheline Hachette, Ana Hatherly, Rebecca Horn, Sanja Iveković, Joan Jonas, Annalies Klophaus, Janina Kraupe, Ketty La Rocca, Katalin Ladik, Maria Lai, Liliana Landi, Sveva Lanza, Paola Levi Montalcini, Natalia LL, Lucia Marcucci, Paola Mattioli, Libera Mazzoleni, Gisella Meo, Marisa Merz, Annabella Miscuglio, Verita Monselles, Adriana Monti, Aurelia Munõz, Giulia Niccolai, Anna Oberto, Stephanie Oursler, Anésia Pacheco e Chaves, Anna Paci, Gina Pane, Giulio Paolini, Jennifer Pike Cobbing, Marguerite Pinney, Bogdanka Poznanović, Betty Radin, Carol Rama, Regina, Cloti Ricciardi, Giovanna Sandri, Suzanne Santoro, Mira Schendel, Carolee Schneemann, Greta Schödl, Eleanor Schott, Berty Skuber, Mary Ellen Solt, Wendy Stone, Chima Sunada, Salette Tavares, Biljana Tomić, Silvia Truppi, VALIE EXPORT, Patrizia Vicinelli, Jacqueline Vodoz, Gisela von Frankenberg, Simona Weller, Francine Widmer, Francesca Woodman.

FM Centre for Contemporary Art is promoted by Open Care, the only company in Italy offering integrated services for the management and conservation of art.