Carla Lonzi, Lea Vergine, and the Feminist Roots of Italian Art Criticism

This article from Artribune Magazine examines the intersections of art, gender, and identity, focusing on key Italian feminist critics and theorists from the 1970s. It highlights Carla Lonzi's radical critique of equality as a mask for oppression in her 1974 book "Sputiamo su Hegel!" and her 1969 "Autoritratto," which subverts traditional art criticism by centering artists' voices. The piece also discusses Lea Vergine's pioneering 1974 book "Body Art e altre storie," which predates Roselee Goldberg's performance art history by five years, and her recent posthumous publication "L'arte non è faccenda di persone perbene" (Rizzoli). Judith Butler's concept of performative gender is invoked, alongside references to Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" (1966) and Lucy R. Lippard's 1976 essay on women's body art. The article notes that early feminist art in the 1960s was often abstract to gain gallery acceptance, as observed by Anne Marie Sauzeau Boetti in her 1976 essay "Negative Capability as Practice in Women's Art." The text argues that Italian feminist thought, from Lonzi to Vergine, challenged both art historical narratives and patriarchal structures, advocating for a new subjectivity beyond historical materialism.