Ketty La Rocca
Ketty La Rocca is one of Italy’s most eminent representatives of Conceptual Art. The œuvre of the early deceased artist comprises visual poetry, visual art and performance. La Rocca’s poetic, experimental and media-critical exploration is devoted to language, images and the stereotype signs of everyday world. Her goal is to reveal the prevailing policy of bodies. […]
In the 1970’s, La Rocca developed her performative series based on hands. She studied their expressive potential placing this in a linguistic context by writing words on the hands and tracing their contours by means of handwriting. Her interest in hands stemmed from her desire to create a different language, a different form of communication in which the real body, gestural expression and writing entered into a strangely staged relationship. In connection with these works La Rocca made specific reference to the female life context, which had only ascribed certain activities to women’s hands. In 1974, she wrote from a feminist perspective: “For women today is not a time of explanations. They have a lot to do and then they only have one language at their disposal, which is alien and inimical to them. They are robbed of everything, except of the things that no one notices and those are manifold, even if they must be arranged. Hands, for instance, too slow for female skills, too poor and too incapable of continuing to hoard. It is better to embroider with words...“ (1)
Among Ketty La Rocca’s last works are the Riduzioni, in which she processes an everyday photograph––be it a family photograph, a shot of the installation in the gallery, a picture depicting she herself or a politician, a photograph from a newspaper, an art postcard that has been sold a million times or a film poster. The principle of Riduzioni consists of serially expanding the initial photograph by one or more variations. This takes place by means of the graphic schematization of the image, which can follow various patterns. Either the artist “draws”, or traces, with her handwriting the contours of those forms that strike her as important or she elaborates certain elements by means of lines and surfaces marked in black which, like writing, can have the effect of changing the meaning of the content.
La Rocca negates the difference between depth and surface in the same way as the hierarchy of the sequences of scenes and places the image in a nervous state of suspension. In the interstices she creates, in the blank spaces, a poetic space emerges that also extends to imagery from everyday life.
(1) Ketty La Rocca (1974); quoted from the German translation in: Katalog Künstlerinnen international. 1877-1977, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin1977, p. 308
Silvia Eiblmayr, “Ketty la Rocca – Künstlerin einer visuellen Poesie,” in: ed. Silvia Eiblmayr, Ketty La Rocca, Innsbruck 2003, no page.
Biography
born 1938 in La Spezia, died 1976 in Florence
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022
Ketty La Rocca. Se io fotovivo, Opere 1967-1975, CAMERO – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Turin, Italy
2020
Dal momento in cui..., Kunsthalle Fribourg, Fribourg
2019
Appendice per una Supplica, Videoteca GAM, Turin
2018
The Ritual of Gesture, Amanda Wikinson Gallery, London
Gesture, Speech and Word, Gallerie d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Ferrara, Ferrara
MAGMA, Instituto Centrale de la Imagen, Barcelona
2017
Le Mie Parole, La Virreina Centro de la Imagen, Barcelona
2016
Wilkinson Gallery, London
2014
The You has alreday started at the border of my I, Galerie Kadel Wilborn, Dusseldorf
2005
Ketty La Rocca (Works 1964–1976), Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan
2004
American Academy, Rome
2002
Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Italian Institute of Culture, Los Angeles
2001
Omaggio a Ketty La Rocca, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
Museo di Arte Contemporanea e del Novecento, Monsummano Terme, Pistoia
1999
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di La Spezia, La Spezia
1998
Esso Gallery, New York
Galerie Kienzle & Gmeiner, Berlin
1995
Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart
1994
Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan
1992
Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva
1990
Galleria Matteo Remolino, Turin
1989
Galleria Carini, (retrospective curated by L. Vinca Masini), Florence
1987
Multimedia (retrospective curated by R. Loda), Brescia
1978
38th Venice Biennale (retrospective curated by L. Carluccio), Venice
1977
Galleria Corsini (retrospective curated by A. Altamira), Intra
1976
Galleria Schema, Florence
1975
You You, Università di Architettura, Florence, Galleria La Tartaruga, Rome
1974
Galleria Diagramma, Milan
1973
Galleria Christian Stein, Turin
1972
Galleria Seconda Scala, Rome
1971
Accumulazioni (Accumulations), Galleria Flori, Florence
Galleria San Fedele, Milan
1970
Galleria Duemila, Bologna
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024
You You, curated by Kate Sutton, Lombardi—Kargl, Vienna
Gruppo 70, Una guerriglia verbo-visa, Galleria Fritteli, Italy
2022/23
Le plaisir du texte, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle, Switzerland
FEMME FATALE, Blick – Macht – Gender, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
2022
Come play with us, Museo delle Arti – Castello di Nocciano, Italy
Vita Nuova, New Challanges for art in Italy 1960-1975, MAMAC, Nice, France
She Bam Pow POP Wizz! The Amazons of Pop, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria
2021
Zeros and Ones, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Germany
Focus sull' Archivio Lonzi, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna Contemporanea, Rome
2020
Bizzare Skills, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, etc., Lenbachhaus, Munich
Print, Print, Print, Museum Ostwall im Dortmunder-U, Dortmund
2018
Dialogue, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
Reduction, Gesellschaft für projektive Ästhetik, Georg Kargl, Vienna
2017
WOMAN. Feministische Avantgarde der 1970er-Jahre aus der Sammlung Verbund, mumok, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna
Mehr als nur Worte [Über das Poetische], Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna
Oltreprima. La fotografia dipinta nell'arte contemporanea, Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna, Bologna
Iconoclash / Il conflitto delle Immagini, Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona
Gruppenausstellung, invented by Karin Guenther, Galerie Karin Guenther, Hamburg
Gruppenausstellung, invented by Karin Guenther, Galerie Kadel Willborn, Dusseldorf
Body to Body, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rom
Sammlung Kienzle, Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein, Vaduz
2016
Lo specchio concavo, BACO, Base Arte Contemporanea Odierna, Bergamo
Eva Kot'atkova & Ketty La Rocca, Museen Haus Lange, Haus Esters, Krefeld
L'Inarchiviabile/The Unarchivable, FM Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea, Milan
Ich, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main
2015
Women and Performance, Richard Saltoun, London
Nach dem frühen Tod, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden
Nice to See You! 160 Works from the Collection, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz
2014
Woman, The Feminist Avantgarde der 1970er Jahre. Werke aus der Sammlung Verbund, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Texte in der Kunst, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
2013
Florenz!, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn
Andata e ricordo/ Souvenir de Voyage, MART, Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto
2011
Passwords 11. Spaces of the Self - Feminitiy in Italian video, Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Fine Line, Georg Kargl Fine Arts & Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2004
Beredte Hände – Die Bedeutung von Gesten in der Kunst vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Residenzgalerie Salzburg, Salzburg
2003
Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
1998
Disidentico, Maschile, Femminile e altro, Palazzo Branciforte, Palermo
La Coscienza Luccicante, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome
1996
Modèles Corrigés, Collège Marcel Duchamp, Chateauroux
1995
Auf den Leib geschrieben, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
1994
L’Espace de l’Ecriture, Italian Institute of Culture, Paris
1986
L’ideogramma universale, Galleria Il Segno, Turin
1979
From Page to Space, Columbia University, New York
1978
Materializzazione del Linguaggio, 38th La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
1977
Poesia Visiva 5: verso un concetto globale, Studio Santandrea, Mailand
Le forme della scrittura, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
1976
Magma, Museo Castelvecchio, Verona, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara
Fotomedia, Helsinki Museum, Helsinki
1975
Frauen Kunst – Neue Tendenzen, Galerie Krinzinger, Innsbruck
1974
Fotomedia, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund
Andata e ritorno, Galleria Schema, Florence
1973
Italy Two Around, Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia
Arte contemporanea, Centro 6, Bari
1972
Il libro come spazio di ricerca, 34th La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
Photography Into Art, Camden Art Centre, London
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