The Unexpected Subject — 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy

‘The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy’ recounts the Seventies as a key phase in the history of Italian art of the 20th century, during which the spread of feminist thinking stimulates a new critical awareness that encourages many female artists, curators and art historians to rethink their role in society, life and art. Starting from a symbolic date, 1978, the year in which Mirella Bentivoglio presents more than 80 female artists at the exhibition Materializzazione del linguaggio on the occasion of the 38th Venice Biennale, the catalogue rereads the decade to focus on the close link between artistic practice and feminism. The stories and artworks of the female protagonists of that season testify to the emergence in the scene of history of a new subject (an unexpected subject) that, interrupting “the monologue of patriarchal culture”, finally manages to manifest itself.