Il femminismo come “recupero di un soggetto celato”: l’opera di Libera Mazzoleni, 1973-1979

Abstract

In the seventies the practice and the thought developed by feminism have had a considerable weight in the events of Italian art, which extends beyond the perimeter defined by the experience of women artists, art critics or collectives involved in awareness raising groups and in the women’s liberation movement. In this sense, the case of Libera Mazzoleni is exemplary, because feminist theory, especially Luce Irigaray’s deconstruction of Freudian psychoanalysis, played a decisive role in her work, although the artist did not directly participate in the activities of feminist groups. The article analyzes the history of Mazzoleni, which has remained in the shadows up to now, examining her works and the archival documents, not only to bring attention to the work of a significant figure in the artistic panorama of the seventies, but also to deepen the dense network of relationships that the artist had with women curators, gallery owners and artists of her generation, in order to shed light on the links between art and feminist thought, on the relations of Italian artists with the international scene and on the critical reception of women’s art in the the Italian cultural context of the 1970s.