Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy

Magazzino Italian Art to Present Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy, a Day-Long Symposium on Feminism and Art in 1970s Italy and Its Resonance Today

Magazzino Italian Art | 2700 Route 9, Cold Spring, NY

Cold Spring, NY—Magazzino Italian Art is proud to announce that it will present a free, day-long symposium on Saturday, April 27, with five leading scholars of feminism and art history, celebrating the recent publication of the essay collection Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy. Exploring multiple issues in the artistic, social, and political currents of the period and their continuing resonance today, Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy is the product of a research project initiated by the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, supported by the Italian Council’s Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture, with scientific organization by Giorgia Gastaldon.

In collaboration with these institutions, Magazzino will offer the public the opportunity to meet all contributors to the book—the editor of the book Giorgia Gastaldon and the authors Silvia Bottinelli, Maria Bremer, Lara Conte, and Raffaella Perna—and attend presentations of their research from 11:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the museum’s Robert Olnick Pavilion.

Filippo Fossati, Director of Magazzino, said, “The title of this landmark book, and of our symposium, is drawn from a phrase in the 1970 Manifesto di Rivolta Femminile: ‘We have been looking for 4,000 years: now we have seen!’ This shift in language from ‘look’ to ‘see,’ from passivity to agency, testified to the rising self-awareness of women artists in the period and their demand for change. Participants in the symposium will address women’s liberation in this era by exploring a constellation of topics in the visual arts, leading to a broader critical and historical analysis of the tools and paradigms of emancipation.”

Presenters at Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy, introduced by Filippo Fossati:

· Giorgia Gastaldon (Assistant Professor in Contemporary Art History at the University of Insubria, Varese-Como): Weaving and Stitching: Female and Feminist Practices in Italian Abstract Art in the 1970s

· Silvia Bottinelli (Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Visual and Material Studies Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University): Behind the Window in Postwar Italian Art: Reframing a Metaphor

· Maria Bremer (Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum): Recognition Across Time: “Herstories” in Exhibitions (1970s/2020s)

· Raffaella Perna (Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Roma La Sapienza): Photobooks and Feminism in Italy in the 1970s

· Lara Conte (Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at Roma Tre University): Sculpture Practices and Feminist Perspective, from the Historical Dimension to the Present: Genealogies and Reception

There will be Q&As at the end of both the morning and afternoon sessions, with a lunch break. Reservations for Now We Have Seen: Women and Art in 1970s Italy are required, and may be made here.

The presentation will also be live streamed on the Museum’s website.

This event is part of the eponymous research project supported by the Italian Council (2022), Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity, and Italian Ministry of Culture.