Now We Have Seen. Women and Art in 1970s Italy

The film traces the work of Italian women artists in the 1970s and links it to the theoretical discourses and social achievements of the feminist movement, which, like no other protest movement in this period, had an enduring impact upon Italian society. The scholars Giorgia Gastaldon and Giovanna Zapperi and the artist Silvia Giambrone explain to us to what extent these innovations on the one hand – and the legacy of a patriarchal society on the other – continue to be felt today.

In 1970, Romans woke up to find the walls of the city plastered with a manifesto announcing the need for a systematic feminist revolution. The work of the group Rivolta Femminile, this manifesto had been written by the art critic Carla Lonzi, the painter Carla Accardi and the journalist Elvira Banotti. Taking its inspiration from their declaration: “For 4,000 years we have watched – now we have seen!”, the video examines the specific contribution of female artists and art critics to the critical discourses about society during those years. The art historian Giorgia Gastaldon draws attention to the way the feminist movement reconfigured the conditions under which female artists produced and exhibited their work and reminds us of the numerous initiatives that aimed to upend an art system still in thrall to patriarchal structures. By reconstructing the preexisting historical situation and revisiting the diverse discussions that both unfolded within this situation and called it into question, we come face-to-face with an era of upheaval and revolutionary change. This sharpens our appreciation of the protagonists’ impressive achievements and sensitizes us to the fact that the goal of an egalitarian society requires the conscious and active will to realize it. Paradoxically, a step in this direction comes from looking back and confronting the past, as it is in this confrontation that we learn to question society in its present form.

Scientists: Giorgia Gastaldon and Giovanna Zapperi. Artist: Silvia Giambrone

Giorgia Gastaldon is assistant professor of contemporary art history at the Università degli Studi dell'Insubria and scientific director of the Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy project that is part of the Weddigen department and is supported by the Italian Council (2022), Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, Ministero della Cultura. The The results of the project were published in the Studi della Bibliotheca Hertziana, Vol. 18.

Teaser

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