feminist art

Hope you all did your homework by watching Hulu's Dopesick because we are talking about the Sackler family and their relationship with the arts. More specifically Bianca takes us through a chapter of her thesis on The Dinner Party and discusses The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art— the person who acquired the piece and the space it is permanently housed in. Stick around to listen to our thoughts on how art was used as a tool to suggest the Sackler’s status and how acts of protest took place in influential museum spaces both IRL and in the show.

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Welcome to this 11th episode of the Dior Talks podcast ‘Feminist Art’.  This series explores the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, and contemporary women artists and curators.  

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art historian, speaks with Eva Jospin, the French artist whose monumental embroidered work lined the walls of the show space at the Musée Rodin for the Autumn-Winter 2021-2022 haute couture collection unveiled on July 5, 2021. 

Eva Jospin was born in Paris, France, in 1975. She gave up her initial interest in architecture to study sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, preferring the physicality of the process. Graduating in 2002, she has become known for her sculptural work using cardboard as a material, building up and combining its flat planes to create striking and very often large-scale pieces of complex depth depicting forests, caves, and country homes. With her art having been exhibited in prestigious locations such as the Palais de Tokyo, Manufacture des Gobelins, Musée du Louvre and the Hayward Gallery, she has also been an artist in residence at the
Villa Medici in Rome.  

It was while in Rome that she discovered the Sala dei Ricami at the Palazzo Colonna, a sumptuous room entirely upholstered in Indian-inspired embroideries. It would prove the inspiration for her collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri, a “project that went from big to huge”. Her initial drawings would be developed into a work 40 meters long and 350m2, embroidered by hand by the Chanakya ateliers and the Chanakya School of Craft in Mumbai, India, a phenomenal undertaking requiring in the region of 300 artisans deploying some 400 colors of silk thread in 150 variations of traditional techniques.  

In this episode she discusses how she looked to the palette of post-Impressionist painter Edouard Vuillard and the way he built color and perception of depth by utilizing the canvas itself as an intrinsic element. She speaks about how the name of her awe-inspiring installation ‘Chambre de Soie’ (‘Silk Room’), is also a reference to Virginia Woolf’s seminal feminist treatise ‘A Room of One’s Own’, known as ‘Une Chambre à Soi’ in French. With the use of textiles a complete departure, she opens up about embracing this new form of artistic expression and the process behind appreciating the scale and conceiving a visual flow for her expansive installation.  

Welcome to this 10th episode of the Dior Talks podcast ‘Feminist Art’. This series explores the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri, and contemporary women artists and curators.

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with musical artist Ioanna Gika, the Greek-American musical artist who performed at the Cruise 2022 show held in Athens, on the evening of June 17, 2021.

Ioanna Gika was born in Washington D.C. She spent her childhood between Greece and the United States, returning to live at her mother’s Greek home after her father’s death, when she started to write her first album, “Thalassa” (“Sea”) about her life and homeland. She is based in Los Angeles where, in 2009, she founded the band Io Echo with Leopold Ross. They released their debut album in 2013 and have supported Nine Inch Nails, Garbage and Florence + the Machine amongst others. They have performed at the Coachella and Lollapalooza festivals, and Gika has written and performed for movies and television consistently since 2012.

Having already performed at the Cruise 2018 show in Los Angeles, Maria Grazia Chiuri was delighted to invite her to collaborate with the House again. On the night, with a live orchestra and multimedia accompaniments, she recited a poem that reflected her roots in Greece and her rich, powerful voice resonated through the Panathenaic Stadium, the first stone of which was laid over 2500 years ago. She talks about this electrifying experience and the feeling of connection to the past which she felt as she performed. Having toured and sung widely around the world, she notes how unique and different this occasion was and how profoundly she seemed to be grounded in the moment. The monumental location itself possesses a huge significance. Constructed in white marble, it was a primary setting for the first modern Olympic Games. Its length symbolizes an ancient unit of measurement and, crucially for both the singer and Maria Grazia Chiuri, it was the first place in Classical Greece where women could freely appear and socialize in public.

Ioanna Gika reflects on notions of the word ‘race’ – the human race, the race against time, to participate in a race. The conjunction of these meanings in the stadium created a poignant combination of symbols and thoughts for her. She goes on to consider the personal and social significance of clothes, both in general and also the creations in the collection and the remarkable outfit specially designed for her. Like Maria Grazia Chiuri, she is inspired by the colors of Greece, by the use of blue and all the historical and mystical connotations which accompany it. She also weaves a beautiful connection between the visual sensations of fashion and womanhood and the sensory streams of consciousness so prevalent in her own music.

Sculpture has long been thought of as a technique reserved for men, and yet the most well-known and popular women artists of the 20th century were sculptors: Camille Claudel, Niki de Saint Phalle, Germaine Richier and the great work of Louise Bourgeois. What a strong character with a great sense of humour and high spirits! This is what we would like you discover about this extraordinary artist, who for so long worked in the dark, unnoticed, yet who never resented this. 

The podcast Great Women of Art gives a voice to women artists of the 20th century. They speak about their work, their lives, the world around them and their achievements. Let us go in search of their presence, their secrets. Let us rediscover the hidden history of women artists through their voices.
Great Women of Art is a podcast produced by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, in collaboration with the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, with the support of Maison Veuve Clicquot and the Ministry of Culture’s Délégation à la transmission, aux territoires et à la démocratie culturelle.
 

AWARE is a non-profit organization co-founded in 2014 by Camille Morineau.

Coordinated by: Mathilde de Croix and the AWARE team
Directed by: Élodie Royer
Music by: Juliano Gil
Credits: Andrew Nelson
Sound Editing: Basile Beaucaire
Research Advisors: Catherine Gonnard and Marjorie Micucci
Translation: Katia Porro
French Voice: Camille Morineau
English Voice: Lou Doillon
Translation of the Artist’s Voice: Eve Dayre

Extracts: Otte, Lyrics and singing by Louise Bourgeois, music by Satch Hoyt and Ramuntcho Matta; produced by Brigitte Cornand, Les Films du Siamois, Paris, 1995

Illustration: Fanny Michaëlis, Louise Bourgeois, 2021
© Fanny Michaëlis  

The subject of the first episode of the podcast Great Women of Art is sculpture, a technique that has long been considered as one reserved for men. Women have ventured in it, measured on a monumental scale, and have even, for some, taken over public space. Niki de Saint Phalle, one of the best-known female artists of the 20th century, was a sculptor. She claimed herself to be one and her pride is to have imposed her women in the streets: her Nanas sculptures. 

The podcast Great Women of Art gives a voice to women artists of the 20th century. They speak about their work, their lives, the world around them and their achievements. Let us go in search of their presence, their secrets. Let us rediscover the hidden history of women artists through their voices.
Great Women of Art  is a podcast produced by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, in collaboration with the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, with the support of Maison Veuve Clicquot and the Ministry of Culture’s Délégation à la transmission, aux territoires et à la démocratie culturelle.

AWARE is a non-profit organization co-founded in 2014
by Camille Morineau.

Coordinated by: Mathilde de Croix and the AWARE team

Directed by: Élodie Royer

Music by: Juliano Gil

Credits: Andrew Nelson

Sound Editing: Basile Beaucaire

Research Advisors: Catherine Gonnard and Marjorie Micucci

Translation : Katia Porro 

French Voice : Camille Morineau

English Voice: Lou Doillon

Translation of the Artist’s Voice : Eve Dayre

Illustration : Fanny Michaëlis, Niki de Saint Phalle, 2021
© Fanny Michaëlis  

Welcome to this ninth episode of the Dior Talks podcast series ‘Feminist Art’. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with Mickalene Thomas, the New York-based painter and multimedia artist, about her career as an observer and documenter of African American womanhood in all its variety, and her lifelong fascination with the black female experience, from her own family members to the world at large.

Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1971 and was raised by a remarkable mother who introduced her to visual art as a young child and raised her as a Buddhist. Thomas studied pre-law and theater in Portland, Oregon, before completing her BA and MA in Fine Art at the Pratt Institute and Yale School of Art, respectively. Based in Brooklyn, she has exhibited her paintings, collages, photographs, films and videos around the world, including in major exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, ICA Boston, Aspen Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art. She has also completed many commissions, amongst others at MoMA PS1 in New York, the Norton Museum of Art, and a mosaic mural for the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Dakar, Senegal.

Thomas’s work and research processes involve multiple reference points, including the history of art, the representation of black femininity and black power and the seminal 1970s ‘Blaxploitation’ genre. She has painted many iconic African American women, including Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, and is renowned for her deft use of classical traditions of fine art in her penetrative portrayals of the black experience.

For the Dior Cruise 2020 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri commissioned Thomas to reinterpret Christian Dior’s iconic ‘Bar’ jacket, a timely collaboration and an opportunity for the two creatives to combine their passions for the historical and the contemporary, along with their mutual dedication to feminism and female creativity. In 2018, Thomas was invited to create a new and striking take on the ‘Lady Dior’ handbag, as part of the limited-edition ‘Dior Lady Art’ series.

Welcome to the eighth episode of the new Dior Talks podcast series ‘Feminist Art’. This series will highlight some of the key practitioners in the pioneering and evolving field of feminist art, a source of endless inspiration for Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s collections. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, speaks with Marinella Senatore, the Rome-based multimedia artist, about her challenging and politically uncompromising approach to making her work.

For the unveiling of the Cruise 2021 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri commissioned Senatore to collaborate with local artisans on a series of mammoth light sculptures – luminarie – for the audience-free show, streamed live from Lecce in Puglia, Italy. These works incorporate varied phrases which inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri during the creation of the collection, the spirit of which is summed up by the statement, “We rise by lifting others”.

Marinella Senatore was born in Italy in 1977 and studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, the Conservatorio and the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema in Rome. This expansive education has influenced her impressively wide-ranging artistic practice ever since, as she works with video, action, photography, installation, sculpture and painting. Fascinated by ideas of participation, dialogue, history and social structures, she is highly prolific and has exhibited widely. She has shown at the Centre Pompidou, MAXXI, the Queens Museum, Kunsthaus Zürich and Castello di Rivoli amongst many others, and has participated in numerous group shows, screenings and residences.

Her all-encompassing approach to making art was a perfect contribution to Maria Grazia Chiuri’s concept for the staging of the 2021 Cruise show, and the unique set of cultural and social conditions present in the province of Puglia, which was also the collection’s primary inspiration. Senatore is constantly inspired by communities and the actions and creations achievable through a site-specific, in-person approach to examining concepts of physical and virtual space and the challenges posed by the technical limitations of photography and cinematography. With Katy Hessel she discusses the collaboration and the origins of the bond she and Maria Grazia Chiuri formed over their shared passion for Italian feminist art.

Welcome to this seventh episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art historian, speaks to Vicki Noble, the iconic and trailblazing proponent of shamanic feminism, the Goddess Movement and the second-wave feminism of the 1970s.

For the Dior Cruise 2018 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired to collaborate with Noble on an exquisite and mystical series of clothing, accessories and jewelry based on the groundbreaking Motherpeace Tarot cards which she created with Karen Vogel in Berkeley, California in the 1970s. The captivating results were subsequently debuted in a selection of dedicated pop-up stores around the world that had been specially decorated with paintings and hangings featuring arcana from the deck such as ‘The Wheel of Fortune’, ‘The High Priestess’ and ‘The Sun’.

Vicki Noble was born in Iowa in 1947 but moved to Berkeley, then the epicenter of the hippy and feminist movements, in 1976, where she met her future collaborator Vogel. Together they created the Motherpeace Tarot deck of cards after being inspired by the contemporary Goddess Movement and the vibrant, radical feminism of the era. In this critical period of feminist development, visual art was extremely important and Noble was a crucial figure in the drive to weave links between the new progressive politics, the occult, mysticism and creativity.

In this new episode of Dior Talks we speak to Noble about her extraordinary, surprising and avant-garde career, and about the famous deck of cards which has never been out of production since it was created over four decades ago and which has inspired generations of feminists worldwide.

Discover a selection of works:

Vicki Noble, Karen Vogel, The Motherpeace Tarot, 1978https://books.google.fr/books?id=UWsKAAAACAAJ&dq=vicki+noble&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOx7zYl-3oAhWQ4IUKHR7wBwsQ6AEIZzAG

https://fr-fr.facebook.com/Dior/videos/the-motherpeace-tarot-by-vicki-noble-and-karen-vogel/1606501142737878/

Vicki Noble, Shakti Woman : Feeling our Fire, Healing our World, 1991https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062281470/shakti-woman/

An interview with Vicki Noble, Dior Resort Show, 2017 https://fr-fr.facebook.com/Dior/videos/1356667151054613/

Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess : Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization, 1989 ttps://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Language_of_the_Goddess.html?id=WTmVQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Welcome to this sixth episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art historian, speaks to Penny Slinger, the British-born, California-based artist, about her long career and her recent Dior collaborations with Maria Grazia Chiuri.

Specially for the Dior autumn-winter 2019 haute couture show, Slinger designed a unique and exquisite gilded doll’s house as a mystical yet pertinent work of wearable apparel, based on the form of the iconic Dior hôtel particulier at 30 Avenue Montaigne. She was inspired by the building, by each step of its iconic staircase, which, for the show, she transformed and transported to her own surreal universe. This scenography, which celebrates the Dior heritage, the strength and beauty of natural elements, and the diversity and uniqueness of women, subtly references her organic and resolutely feminist output.

Penny Slinger was born in London in 1947, and studied at Chelsea School of Art in the late 60s. Declining an offer to undertake a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, she chose instead to launch her artistic practice. Her work was included in a group exhibition at London’s renowned Institute of Contemporary Art in 1969. Slinger published a book of her photographic collages in 1971 and Rolling Stone magazine compared its importance to that of The Beatles. Slinger developed her theories and practice around ideas of surrealism and its relationship to feminism. In tandem with exhibiting at London museums and galleries, she worked closely with the worlds of theater and film, consistently publishing books of her visual work and poetry. 

In 1980, she moved to the Caribbean, where she evolved her practice in the direction of archaeology and indigenous cultures. From there she moved to Northern California in 1994, hosting events and residencies for creatives in the region. She became an American citizen and has lived in California since. She has exhibited widely throughout her career, in the UK, Europe, across the USA, Asia and the Caribbean.

Discover a selection of work: 

Penny Slinger, An Exorcism, 1977 https://pennyslinger.com/Works/an-exorcism-2/

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/penny-slinger-13524

Penny Slinger, 50% The Visible Woman, 1971 https://pennyslinger.com/Works/50-the-visible-woman/

Penny Slinger, Doll’s  houses, 1970-2019 https://pennyslinger.com/Works/dolls-houses-2/

Penny Slinger, Christian Dior Haute Couture at 30 avenue Montaigne (Paris), July 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVl3jLEKfq8 https://www.dior.com/diormag/fr_fr/article/33195

“ Young and Fantastic”, exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1969 https://pennyslinger.com/Works/1960s-3d-works/#prettyPhoto[portfolio]/19/

“400 Years of Collage”, an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland, 2019 https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/penny-slinger-collage-naughty-medium

Penny Slinger, Out of the shadows, a film Richard Kovitch, 2017 https://www.pennyslingerfilm.com

Benvenuti a questo quinto episodio di Dior Talks. Questa serie esplora la relazione tra  il Direttore Creativo delle collezioni donna, Maria Grazia Chiuri, e artiste e curatrici contemporanee. In questo episodio, Katy Hessel, una curatrice, scrittrice e storica dell’arte con base a Londra, parla con Tomaso Binga dell’inizio della sua carriera come artista concettuale femminista in occasione dell’apertura della sua mostra alla Galleria Il Mascherino di Roma. 

Tomaso Binga è lo pseudonimo di Bianca Pucciarelli, nata a Salerno nel 1931. A 18 anni lascia la sua città natale per spostarsi a Roma dove, negli anni 60, inizia la sua carriera artistica. Le viene chiesto di esporre le sue opere nel 1971, dopo un attimo di esitazione, inizia a creare ed esporre una serie di opere considerate controverse e provocanti dalla società dell’epoca. Il suo alter ego nasce negli anni 70 quando decide di adottare un nome maschile per denunciare il sessismo del mondo dell’arte e della società italiana. L’unione tra Bianca e Tomaso viene celebrata tramite la performance del 1977, Oggi Spose, dove Bianca Pucciarelli sposa il suo alter ego maschile. Il nome è un omaggio al celebre esponente del Futurismo, Tommaso Marinetti, una fonte di ispirazione per Binga. Il nome Tomaso Binga viene creato come sfida al controllo egemonico degli uomini. Una delle opere più celebri dell’artista è il suo Alfabeto creato negli anni 70, dove il corpo nudo di Binga forma le lettere dell’alfabeto. È questo stesso alfabeto che viene reinterpretato per la scenografia della sfilata Dior Autunno-Inverno 2019. Bianca Pucciarelli è professoressa all’Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone e vice presidente della Fondazione Filiberto Menna a Salerno. Le sue opere sono state esposte sia in Itali che all’estero in occasione della 38esima edizione della Biennale di Venezia, la 14esima edizione della Biennale di San Paolo e la Biennale di Lione. 

Welcome to this fifth episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, a London-based curator, writer and art-historian, talks to Tomaso Binga about her long and influential career as a feminist conceptual artist, in the wonderful setting of the seminal Galleria Il Mascherino in Rome.

Tomaso Binga was born Bianca Pucciarelli in Salerno, southern Italy, in 1931. At the age of 18 she left her hometown and moved to Rome and she started making art in the 1960s. She was first asked to exhibit her work in a gallery setting in 1971 and was initially wary of exposure, preferring to leave art world recognition to her critic husband. However, she overcame her reticence and proceeded to create and exhibit a series of highly controversial and provocative works.

The alter ego came about in the early 70s, when she decided to take a man’s name as a statement about the deeply ingrained sexism of the art world and indeed the world at large. The name was an homage to Marinetti, the surrealist poet whose work has been a lifelong inspiration for Binga. ‘Tomaso Binga’ was created as a challenge to men and their hegemonic status.

Binga is best known for her seminal Alphabet works of the 1970s, in which she used her own naked body to form the letters of the alphabet – which was used as part of the scenography of the Dior Autumn-Winter 2019 show – and her 1977 performance, Just Married, when Bianca Menna married her male pseudonym Tomaso Binga. 

She has been a major influence on generations of women artists. She was a Professor at the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Frosinone and is a vice president of the Filiberto Menna Foundation in Salerno. She has had exhibitions and participated in festivals and performances throughout Italy and internationally, including the 38th Venice Biennale, the 14th São Paulo Biennial, and the Biennale de Lyon.

Discover a selection of works:

Tomaso Binga, Feminist Works, 1970-1980, Galleria Mascherino (March – April 2020), Rome https://flash---art.it/2020/03/tomaso-binga-feminist-works-1970-1980-galleria-mascherino-roma/

Tomaso Binga: A Silenced Victory, Mimosa House, London (September- December 2019) https://mimosahouse.co.uk/tomaso-binga-2

Romana Loda, curator (-2010) http://dspace-unipr.cineca.it/bitstream/1889/3265/1/PERNA-mostre.pdf

Mirella Bentivoglio, poet and curator (1922-2017) https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/mirella-bentivoglio

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-86fcbd9ef0ef89d5cca5d787204b4d91&param.idSource=FR_P-86fcbd9ef0ef89d5cca5d787204b4d91

Verita Monselles, photographer (1929-2005) https://www.centrephotogeneve.ch/en/artist/verita-monselles/

https://archivioraam.org/en/artist/verita-monselles

Verita Monselles, Ecce Homo, 1976 https://www.artribune.com/attualita/2016/02/dialoghi-di-estetica-raffaella-perna/attachment/verita-monselles-ecce-homo-ii-serie-1976/ 

Tomaso Binga, Dior Autumn-Winter 2019-2020, February 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNTDiPoN7g

Welcome to this fourth episode of Dior Talks. This podcast series will explore the connections between Creative Director of Women’s collections Maria Grazia Chiuri and contemporary women artists and curators. 

In this episode, series host Katy Hessel, the London-based writer, curator and art historian, talks to Tracey Emin, one of the pre-eminent figures of contemporary art in the UK. In 2017, Emin, whose practice has always been firmly yet uniquely framed within the history of feminist discourse, created a specially commissioned work, Should Love Last, for the Dior pop-up store at 44 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Tracey Emin CBE is one of the generations of Young British Artists (YBAs) who came to prominence in the early 1990s and whose work changed the landscape and language of contemporary art in the UK. Yet the immediacy and autobiographical narrative of her work has always set her slightly apart from her contemporaries. Working in painting, drawing, video and installation, and also photography, needlework and sculpture, she has always used her own life and childhood as her subject matter, to reassess the nature of “women’s work” and the position of women, and of femininity, within the frame of artistic expression. 

Emin was born in 1963 and grew up in Margate, a seaside town on the Kent Coast, and her childhood there, particularly her teenage years, form a powerful source of inspiration for her work.

In 1999 she was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in London and in 2007 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennial. She is a panelist and speaker and has lectured widely, including at the V&A Museum. In 2011, she was appointed professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.

Discover a selection of works:

Tracey Emin, Should Love Last, 2016 (Dior store, 44 avenue Montaigne, Paris) https://www.dior.com/diormag/en_gb/article/interview-tracey-emin

Tracey Emin, The Mother, 2018 (The Museum Island, Oslo) https://www.themuseumisland.com/en/artist/tracey-emin/

Tracey Emin, Hate and Power Can be a Terrible Thing, 2004 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/emin-hate-and-power-can-be-a-terrible-thing-t11891

https://www.jessicahemmings.com/tracey-emin-stitching-extreme/

Tracey Emin, A Fortnight of Tears, Exhibition at the White Cube gallery (February- April 2019, London) https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/tracey_emin_bermondsey_2019

Louise Bourgeois with Tracey Emin, Do Not Abandon Me, 2009-2010 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/153422

Bow Down : Women in Art History, a podcast by Jennifer Higgie https://frieze.com/article/bow-down-podcast-women-art-history

This third episode of the ‘Feminist Art’ series focuses on Paola Ugolini, an independent curator and critic. She has curated the Dior-sponsored “Io dico Io - I say I” at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, a major exhibition devoted to the work of Italian feminist artists, running from March 24 to June 21, 2020.

Born and based in Rome, Paola Ugolini experienced the turbulent decade of the 1970s in the Italian capital as a teenager. With demonstrations a seemingly daily occurrence, she was exposed to political and, more importantly, feminist activism at a formative moment, which shaped her view of art as a powerful means of expression. 

A close friend of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the tradition of feminist theory and art has been an integral part of her work. From her fascination with performance and body art to embroidery and video, the mediums embraced by women to self-represent and make their voices heard have gone from once being highly experimental to now being part of the mainstream. An important part of her role, as she sees it, is to bring such work, and the messages it contains, to a new generation of women, and men. 

In an absorbing and enlightening exchange, she chats with Katy Hessel, a writer, curator and art historian, at the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum in Paris. 

Discover a selection of works:

Feminism in Italian Contemporary Art, exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery, October-November 2019 (London) https://www.richardsaltoun.com/exhibitions/78-feminism-in-italian-contemporary-art-silvia-giambrone-and-marinella-senatore/overview/

The Body as Language: Women and Performance, exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery, October-November 2015 (London) https://www.richardsaltoun.com/exhibitions/44-the-body-as-language-women-and-performance/overview/

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), 1989 https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger/untitled-your-body-battleground

Carol Rama (1918-2015) :

https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/carol-rama-antibodies  

http://www.mam.paris.fr/fr/expositions/exposition-la-passion-selon-carol-rama

Hannah Wilke, S.O.S.- Starfication Object Series, 1974-82 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/102432

Helen Chadwick (1953-1996) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/helen-chadwick-2253

Ketty La Rocca (1938-1976) https://www.moma.org/artists/65088?locale=en#works

Corpo a corpo, Body to Body, exhibition at Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, June-September 2017 (Rome) https://lagallerianazionale.com/en/mostra/corpo-a-corpo-body-to-body/

Carolee Schneemann, Interior Scroll, 1975 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schneemann-interior-scroll-p13282

This episode was recorded at Palais Tokyo (Paris): https://www.palaisdetokyo.com/en