Camera Torino retrospective explores Ketty La Rocca's pioneering use of photography, performance, and visual poetry

Camera in Torino is hosting a retrospective on Ketty La Rocca (La Spezia, 1938 – Florence, 1976), focusing on her work from 1967 to 1975. Curated by Raffaella Perna and Monica Poggi, the exhibition highlights La Rocca's constant use of photography alongside performance, visual poetry, and video. La Rocca emerged in the late 1960s with the Florentine Gruppo 70, combining visual poetry with action. Her 1967 performance 'Approdo' placed manipulated road signs along the Autostrada del Sole. A more intimate 1970 performance shows her under sheets with a 'J'-shaped sculpture, alluding to the body and the French pronoun 'Je' (I). In 1972, the Venice Biennale featured her artist's book 'In principio erat', adding gestural communication to image, word, and body. The section curated by Gerry Shum included her video 'Appendice per una supplica', one of the first video artworks by a female Italian artist. In the mid-1970s, her 'Riduzioni' series paired found photographs with graphic marks, reclaiming image meaning. Her final series 'Craniologie' ironically engages with X-ray technology, filling skulls with hands, gestures, and the word 'you'. The exhibition traces the epistemological shifts in La Rocca's research, revealing both her declared social commitment and the less explicit aesthetic-formal aspects.