Italian artist Chiara Fumai dies at 39

Chiara Fumai, a 39-year-old Italian artist known for her anarcha-feminist performances, died by suicide on August 16, 2017, in Bari. Her body was found in the Doppelgaenger gallery in Bari Vecchia. The news was announced by journalist and art critic Pietro Marino on Facebook, who had been informed by Fumai's mother. Born in Rome in 1978, Fumai studied architecture at Politecnico di Milano and attended the Corso Superiore di Arti Visive at Fondazione Ratti. Her practice combined performance, deconstruction, freak show, metaphysics, cross-dressing, and DJ sets, focusing on women's roles in the art system. In 2013, she won the Premio Furla with a performance reinterpreting Valerie Solanas's text. She participated in dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel in 2012, invited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, and exhibited at MAXXI in Rome, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, and Jeu de Paume in Paris. In 2016, she received recognition at the Premio Vaf at Macro in Rome, and in 2017 she won the Premio New York. Fumai had suffered from depression for some time. Friends and admirers expressed shock and grief on Facebook, including gallerist Guido Costa and journalist Antonella Marino.