press kit - Fondazione Nicola Trussardi

Comune di Milano | Cultura and Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
present
The Great Mother
curated by Massimiliano Gioni
An exhibition promoted by the Cultural Office of the City of Milan
Conceived and produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
in partnership with Palazzo Reale
for ExpoinCittà 2015
Palazzo Reale, Milan
August 26 – November 15, 2015
Milan, August 25th, 2015 – The Great Mother, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, promoted by
Comune di Milano | Cultura, conceived and produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
together with Palazzo Reale for ExpoinCittà 2015, realised with the support of BNL – BNP
Paribas Group, open to the public from August 26th to November 15th 2015 in the main floor
of Palazzo Reale.
The exhibition—a pivotal event in the Autumn programme of ExpoinCittà—is a
collaboration between the public and private sectors aimed at bringing the most
innovative forms of contemporary art into Milan’s most prestigious and pivotal exhibition
venue, Palazzo Reale.
With over 400 works by 139 international artists, writers and directors alongside
documents and other descriptive artifacts – on loan from some twenty museums around the
world, as well as foundations, archives, private collections and galleries — and an exhibition
layout that covers 2000 square meters (20,000 square feet), stretching through 20 rooms
on the main floor of Palazzo Reale, The Great Mother analyzes the iconography of
motherhood in art and visual culture of the Twentieth century, from early avant-garde
movements to the present.
From the Venuses of the Stone Age to the bad girls of the postfeminist era, and through
centuries of religious works depicting innumerable maternity scenes, the histories of art and
culture has often centered on the figure of the mother, often adopted as a symbol of
creativity and metaphor for art itself. In the more familiar version of “Mamma”, it is also a
stereotype closely tied to the image of Italy.
The Great Mother is an exhibition about women’s power: not just the life-giving creative
power of mothers, but above all, the power denied to women and the power won by
women over the course of the twentieth century. From the representation of motherhood,
the exhibition The Great Mother moves out to trace a history of women's empowerment,
chronicling gender struggles, sexual politics, and clashes between tradition and
emancipation.
Conceived as a temporary museum that blends art history with visual culture, the exhibition
reconstructs a story that spans the twentieth century, exploring female icons and clichés
of femininity, and developing a complex reflection on woman as an active participant in
representation, no longer just a passive subject of it.
The show opens with a presentation of the archive of Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, who throughout
her life, starting in the Thirties, gathered thousands of images of female idols, mothers,
matrons, Venuses and prehistoric deities into a vast iconographic collection that was used
by Carl Gustav Jung, Erich Neumann and many other psychologists and anthropologists
researching the archetype of the great mother and the matriarchal cultures of prehistory.
A few decades earlier, the writings of Sigmund Freud and his observations about the
Oedipus complex had transformed family ties and the mother-child relationship into a
drama of sexual desire and repressed tension that would leave its mark on the entire
twentieth century. These themes recur, transfigured, in the drawings and etchings of Alfred
Kubin and Edvard Munch from the same period. In the first rooms of the exhibition, these
delirious visions are alternated with the didactic image of motherhood popularized in the
late nineteenth century by the photographs of Gertrude Käsebier and the motion pictures
of the first female filmmaker, Alice Guy-Blaché.
A major section of the exhibition focuses on women in the early avant-garde movements,
specifically, in Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism. Showing the work of women artists
alongside the male artists who have dominated the histories of these movements, it highlights
both contradictory and complementary attitudes that defined modernity while analyzing the
radical transformations of gender roles that accompanied the profound economic and societal
changes of the early twentieth century. A study of the position of women within Futurism—
with works by Benedetta, Umberto Boccioni, Giannina Censi, Valentine De Saint-Point,
Mina Loy, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Marisa Mori, Regina, Rosa Rosà and others—
reveals the clash between impulses for reform and forces of repression in Italy at the time.
The rooms dedicated to Dada center on the emerging myth of the automated, mechanical
woman—"the daughter born without a mother”, as Francis Picabia would call her—and her
place within the rapidly changing social landscape of the 1910s and 1920s, in both Europe
and America. From the bachelor machines of Marcel Duchamp, Picabia, and Man Ray,
to the puppets and dolls of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Emmy Hennings and Hannah Höch, to
the irreverent performances of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, the show
describes the dangerous liaisons woven between biology, mechanics and desire in the early
twentieth century.
Surrealism’s fascination with women is analyzed through an extraordinary presentation of
fifty original collages from Max Ernst’s The Hundred Headless Woman, shown alongside
the works and documents of André Breton, Hans Bellmer, Salvador Dalí, and others.
Exploring the aesthetic and ethical implications of the Surrealist obsession with femininity,
the exhibition foregrounds the works of women artists who both embraced and rejected
the rhetoric of the movement, in which they found tools for liberation but also oppressive
sexual stereotypes. This section includes masterpieces and famous works by Leonora
Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea
Tanning, Remedios Varo, Unica Zürn, and other artists of the time whose fame was long
overshadowed by their male colleagues.
These works are intertwined with a selection of scenes of motherhood from silent films and
documents about Fascist birth-rate policies, alongside images of sorrowing mothers and
proud heroines in Neorealist cinema. In this choral family album, the image of the mother
often overlaps with the idea of nation, creating troubling associations between body and
state.
The conceptual epicenter of the second part of the exhibition is a selection of works by
Louise Bourgeois, who assimilated and transformed the influence of Surrealism, melding it
with references to archaic cultures, to create a personal mythology of extraordinary
symbolic power.
Many women artists who emerged in the Sixties and Seventies—including Magdalena
Abakanowicz, Ida Applebroog, Lynda Benglis, Judy Chicago, Eva Hesse, Dorothy
Iannone, Yayoi Kusama, Anna Maria Maiolino, Ana Mendieta, Marisa Merz, Annette
Messager and others—created a new vocabulary of forms, full of biological references,
through which these artists declared the centrality of the female body, often associating it
with the powers of nature and the earth.
In more or less the same period—parallel to the feminist movements that will be presented in
the exhibition through a range of documents—very different artists such as Carla Accardi,
Joan Jonas, Mary Kelly, Yoko Ono, Martha Rosler, VALIE EXPORT and others
portrayed the domestic sphere as a place of tension and oppression, calling into question
the division of labor and gender roles in the home and family.
Hierarchies and power dynamics are also challenged in the works of Sherrie Levine, Lee
Lozano, and Elaine Sturtevant who— in different ways—fight against the traditional
modes of production and reproduction. Using copies and replicas or completely refusing to
create anything new, these artists imagine new models of property and new forms of
ownership that sidestep patriarchal authority.
By juxtaposing found images and collage, Barbara Kruger, Ketty La Rocca, Suzanne
Santoro, and others began waging a semiotic guerrilla war that criticized the slogans and
messages of the media, deconstructing the image of woman and mother created by mass
communication.
The works of artists as different as Katharina Fritsch, Cindy Sherman, and Rosemarie
Trockel—active since the Eighties—reclaim art history, blending genres and iconographic
references to the theme of maternity and religious painting and sculpture.
The Nineties saw the rise of various artists whose work is characterized by an aggressive
simplicity. In a now-legendary series, Rineke Dijkstra portrays mothers and their children a
few hours after birth. Sarah Lucas composes sculptures and assemblages out of
androgynous forms; Catherine Opie documents the lives and desires of gay and S/M
communities in Los Angeles; and painters as different as Marlene Dumas and Nicole
Eisenman portray motherhood as a joy and burden, liberation and imprisonment.
Pipilotti Rist mixes Baroque painting with music video esthetics in a new work that
transforms the ceiling of a room in Palazzo Reale into an electronic fresco, while Rachel
Harrison records the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in an American suburb.
The works of Nathalie Djurberg, Robert Gober, Keith Edmier, Kiki Smith, Gillian
Wearing and others outline a post-human perspective in which technology and biology
open up new horizons for overcoming old gender roles.
The exhibition is rounded out by many important installations by Jeff Koons, Thomas
Schütte, Nari Ward and significant works by Thomas Bayrle, Constantin Brancusi,
Maurizio Cattelan, Lucio Fontana, Kara Walker, to cite just a few.
In her famous video Grosse Fatigue, which won a Silver Lion at the last Venice Biennale,
Camille Henrot analyzes creation myths and the genesis of the universe, narrating the birth
of Mother Earth.
An extraordinary series of photographs by Lennart Nilsson – the first photographer to
capture the image of a living fetus with an endoscope—offers a hyperrealistic vision of
maternity, transforming it into a spectacle bordering on science fiction.
The most recent works also include the first presentation in Italy of the famous Brown Sisters
series by Nicholas Nixon, who has taken a group portrait of the siblings every year for the
last forty years.
Together, these works and many others on view delineate an image of the mother as a
projection of individual and collective desires, anxieties and aspirations, both male and
female. Perhaps a less reassuring vision than the one we are used to from advertising and
other rhetoric, but unquestionably more complex and powerful.
Rounding out the exhibition is the Italian premiere of the performance Teaching to walk by
Roman Ondák, which centers on an unpredictable moment: a child’s first steps. Every day
through November 15, a mother will be invited to try teaching her baby to walk in the
exhibition space. Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has opened a casting call for those interested
in taking part: information and bookings at +39 02 8068821 or
press@fondazionennicolatrussardi.com
The work has also inspired the Instagram Call #TeachingToWalk: an invitation to share
your own first steps or those of someone you love in a vast collective album.
The exhibition was prefaced by the Yoko Ono project #MyMommyIsBeautiful, launched
with the artist on May 10 to celebrate mothers on the web and on social networks. Promoted
in partnership with Il Corriere della Sera and La 27 Ora, this call for participation, which will
remain open for the duration of the show, has already collected thousands of tributes and
pictures from Italy and from around the world.
The exhibition The Great Mother is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Massimiliano
Gioni, to be published in two languages, Italian and English, by Skira Editore. The volume
brings together more than three hundred color images, illustrating monographic texts and indepth information on all the artists in the exhibition and a collection of new essays and
criticism, written specifically for the occasion by Marco Belpoliti, Barbara Casavecchia,
Whitney Chadwick, Massimiliano Gioni, Ruth Hemus, Raffaella Perna, Lucia Re,
Pietro Rigolo, Adrien Sina, Guido Tintori, Calvin Tomkins, and Lea Vergine.
The graphic design for the exhibition and publishing products is by Goto Design, New York.
The Great Mother is produced with support from BNL – BNP Paribas Group, the main
sponsor of the exhibition.
The exhibition was made possible thanks yo technical support of AON Empower Results and
XL Catlin and the technical contribution of Birra Menabrea.
Special thanks to Butterfly Transport, Dalani Home and Living, La 27 Ora, Il tempo delle
Donne – Corriere della Sera, Una Hotels & Resorts.
Finally, special thanks to the media partner SKY ARTE HD, who will be showcasing the
exhibition in an original production.
Press info:
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi International Press Office
Alessandra Santerini
alessandrasanterini@gmail.com | ph. +39 335 6853767
Giovanni Sgrignuoli
giovanni.sgrignuoli@gmail.com | ph. +39 328 9686390
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
Piazza Eleonora Duse 4 - 20122 Milan
T. +39 02 8068821 | M. +39 338 6075380
www.fondazionenicolatrussardi.com
Comune di Milano Press Office
Elena Conenna
Palazzo Reale
Piazza Duomo 14 – 20121 Milan
elenamaria.conenna@comune.milano.it
In the year of the Expo, the Milan City Council and the Nicola Trussardi Foundation have
jointly planned and produced an exhibition on the theme of motherhood in the art of the
twentieth century as a universal dimension in which the life of humanity and the cosmos
finds renewal. A comparison of diverse periods and cultures reveals differences but also
unexpected similarities in their representations of birth and the female experience. An
ambitious exploration of what is vast by definition—the very origin of life—is thus
attempted at Palazzo Reale. From primitive art to the avant-garde movements, the body of
works on exhibit is unique and unlikely to ever be brought together again. From the
primitive idols of Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn’s archives to present-day movements and innovations
in which women artists have played a role never, with rare exceptions, previously granted to
them in the history of art, this highly original exhibition interweaves art, sociology,
psychology, and many other dimensions of knowledge. Visiting The Great Mother means
coming into contact with a century of social evolution, contradictions, progress, and
regression to which we are all heirs and on which we can draw in order to grow.
Giuliano Pisapia
Mayor of Milan
The Great Mother is one of the most eagerly awaited artistic events hosted by Milan during
the six-month Expo in Città program of initiatives.
Housed in Palazzo Reale and curated with exceptional skill and authority by Massimiliano
Gioni, Artistic Director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation, this composite exhibition
examines the representation of motherhood in the art of the twentieth century up to the
present day through the works of over 120 artists from all over the world.
Both the city’s inhabitants and Expo visitors are offered the opportunity not only to take an
extraordinary journey through the history of art but also to participate in an in-depth
examination and consideration of the maternal figure. This figure embodies in immediate
and symbolic form the act of primal feeding and hence recalls the deepest roots of the theme
of Expo Milano 2015, which takes as its motto “feeding the planet, energy for life.”
Finally, The Great Mother is the result of an increasingly close and fruitful dialogue between
the public and private sectors motivated by broadly shared aims for achieving the overall
expansion of what the city has to offer culturally and hence the enhancement both of the
community’s intellectual legacy and of Milan’s appeal as an international capital of creative
thought.
This event marks another major step forward in the broad alliance between the Milan City
Council and the Nicola Trussardi Foundation, celebrating a wedding of intents and vision—
held, no less, at the Palazzo Reale—that is destined to bear still more significant fruit that
will continue to enrich the city’s cultural development.
Filippo Del Corno
Councilor for Culture, City of Milan
The vast cultural influence Palazzo Reale has exercised during its decades of activity as an
exhibition venue stems from the fact that many of its projects have marked significant stages
in Italian culture by virtue of their courageousness and path-breaking, visionary qualities.
Among these projects we can certainly include The Other Half of the Avant-Garde, curated
by Lea Vergine in 1980, which has the historical merit of being the first exhibition in Italy to
highlight the role of women artists in the avant-garde movements of the first half of the
twentieth century.
Conceived by the Nicola Trussardi Foundation, one of the major actors in the field of
contemporary art and a tireless initiator of important cultural projects in Milan, and by
Massimiliano Gioni, The Great Mother examines the representation of motherhood in the
twentieth century through the works of over 120 mostly female artists.
Together with the aim of revisiting a tradition of exploring the art of women—a tradition in
which Palazzo Reale has played a leading part—it was the recognition of the seriousness,
generosity, and professionalism of the efforts made by the Nicola Trussardi Foundation that
prompted us to collaborate in giving birth to a project of such an imposing scale.
The decision to concentrate on the fields of modern and contemporary art struck us as
particularly appropriate because it is precisely between the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries that the break with the traditional bourgeois vision of woman encapsulated in the
phrase Kinder, Küche, Kirche—children, cooking, church—openly manifested itself.
It was only in the twentieth century, for example, that the darker and the more irrational and
instinctive facets of the archetype of the Great Mother began to emerge. It was then that
motherhood was subjected to in-depth investigation and acquired a wealth of far more
nuanced meanings, as broadly illustrated by the exhibition.
The quality of the works exhibited as a result of rigorous curatorial selection once again
creates the conditions for an event that can live on in our collective memory and enrich the
already huge and vital cultural legacy that Palazzo Reale offers the world.
Domenico Piraina
Director of Palazzo Reale
Jointly developed with the Milan City Council within the framework of a stimulating and
proficuous dialogue between the public and private sectors, The Great Mother explores the
pathways of history and the territories of the unconscious in a project of collective reflection.
It is a platform open to the contributions of every individual in order to imagine a new model
of society.
The iconography of motherhood from the twentieth century to the contemporary moment,
which draws broadly on archaeological and anthropological research into the earliest times,
has proved rich in surprises in terms of both the discovery of artistic figures and creative
endeavors and the identification of unconventional ideas broached by the ongoing debate
about the condition and role of women. Reflection on motherhood thus leads to immersion in
a universal and transversal experience capable of bringing together women of very different
ages, religions, cultures, geographical areas, and historical periods.
Following the research for this exhibition, the figure of the Great Mother returns as the
evocation of power, the creative force connected with nature and the earth, a boundless
strength that encompasses and guides manifold resources in the pursuit of harmonious
balance between human beings. The mother is the principle out of which everything is born
and to which everything returns. Defining the contours of this archetype enables us to see the
female figure from other angles and understand the universal values of attention, acceptance,
and transformation it has always expressed throughout the history of humanity.
Having left its own home over thirteen years ago to enter the houses of Milan, the Nicola
Trussardi Foundation thus continues its activities in this direction, opening up new channels
and relations. Our goal is to bring art into the everyday lives of all citizens so that it can
foster community participation and new possible futures. This is essentially what we are
working toward with all our passion.
Beatrice Trussardi
President of, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
The exhibition The Great Mother analyzes how motherhood has been represented in the
twentieth century through the works of over one hundred artists and numerous historical
documents and images dating from 1900 to the present.
From the Venuses of the Stone Age to the bad girls of the postfeminist era, and through centuries of religious depictions of maternity scenes, the histories of art and culture have often
centered on the figure of the mother, adopting it at times as a symbol of creativity and a
metaphor for art itself. Throughout the twentieth century—and in the history of modern and
contemporary art in particular—motherhood appears to be constantly under attack: women’s
bodies are often described as and turned into a battleground onto which violent struggles are
fought to establish new boundaries between genders and sexual roles.
The influence of psychoanalysis, the impact of avant-garde art, the acceleration of modernity
and technology, the politics of totalitarian regimes, and the accomplishments of the feminist
movements, among other social phenomena, radically transformed the experience of
maternity and the definition of family in the twentieth century, deeply affecting relationships
between genders and between individuals and societies. Paradoxically, any discourse about
mothers and motherhood in the twentieth century always ends up as a discourse about fathers
and masters, states and nations, and families and religions. Analyzing representations of
motherhood therefore also means asking who has the right to make decisions regarding
bodies and who has the right to represent them through images.
Seen from this perspective, The Great Mother can also be described as an exhibition about
women and power: not just the life-giving power of mothers, but, more broadly, the power
denied to women and the power won by women over the course of the twentieth century. In
undertaking an analysis of the iconography of motherhood through its icons, myths and
clichés, the exhibition also traces a history of women’s empowerment, chronicling a century
of clashes between tradition and emancipation, while capturing the transformations of
sexualities and genders and the shifts in the perception and representation of bodies and
desires.
Conceived as a temporary museum, the exhibition blends art history and visual culture, to
reconstruct a transversal history of the twentieth century and develop a layered reflection on
women as active participants in representation as opposed to passive subjects.
Like a vast family album, the exhibition brings together a collection of images and portraits
that recounts the existential adventures of a varied cast of characters whose personal
biographies intertwine with the writing of official history. An unusual image of motherhood
emerges from many of the works in the exhibition, far removed from
tired and reassuring stereotypes: it is a darker, more obscure, almost lunar side of maternity.
Seen through the visual testimonies of over one hundred years of history, motherhood is
situated in an uncanny realm in which opposite feelings of affection and rejection are
combined. It is through this variety of perspectives that The Great Mother composes an
image of the mother that is perhaps less comforting and far more complex and powerful,
depicting a figure onto which Western society as a whole has projected individual and
collective desires, anxieties, and aspirations for over a century.*
Massimiliano Gioni
Artistic Director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
Curator of the Exhibition “The Great Mother”
* Excerpted from “Women, Maternity and Power in Art and Visual Cultures, 1900 – 2015.”
The full version of the catalogue text is available in the digital press kit.
!
The$Great$Mother$
Women,!Maternity,!and!Power!in!Art!and!Visual!Culture,!1900–2015!
Massimiliano!Gioni!
!
The! exhibition! The$ Great$ Mother$ is! devoted! to! analyzing! the! iconography! of!
motherhood!in!the!twentieth!century!as!seen!in!the!works!of!over!one!hundred!artists!
and! in! numerous! historical! documents! and! images! from! the! past! one! hundred! years.!
The! exhibition! opens! at! the! symbolic! date! of! 1900! and! continues! to! the! present! day,!
though! it! does! not! adhere! closely! to! a! chronological! course! and! focuses! instead! on! a!
series! of! key! themes! and! turning! points! where! the! history! of! art! overlaps! with! other!
manifestations!of!visual!culture!of!the!last!century.!!
The!exhibition!(and!the!catalogue,!which!presents!the!works!in!almost!the!same!
order!as!they!appear!on!display)!is!constructed!like!a!large!family!album,!a!collection!of!
images!and!portraits!that!recount!existential!adventures!in!which!official!histories!are!
entwined! with! personal! biographies.1! The! image! of! motherhood! that! emerges! is! a! far!
cry!both!from!the!maudlin!representation!to!which!the!visual!rhetoric!of!the!media!and!
advertising! has! accustomed! us! and! from! the! still! more! reassuring! image! projected! by!
the! nationalistic! propaganda! of! totalitarian! regimes.! Motherhood,! this! exhibition!
demonstrates,!appears!to!be!constantly!under!attack!throughout!the!history!of!modern!
and!contemporary!art.!Drawing!on!a!wellNknown!work!of!the!American!artist!Barbara!
Kruger,! we! could! say! that,! during! the! twentieth! century,! motherhood! became! “a!
battleground”! for! violent! clashes! to! establish! the! boundaries! of! gender! and! gender!
roles—it!is!a!sphere!that!men!have!all!too!often!usurped!from!women!and!over!which!
they!have!asserted!all!sorts!of!rights.!As!feminists!active!during!the!1970s!would!have!
claimed,!it!is!on!the!battlefield!of!motherhood!that!the!patriarchal!edifice!was!erected.!
Paradoxically,! in! fact,! any! discourse! about! mothers! and! motherhood! in! the!
twentieth!century!always!ends!up!as!a!discourse!about!fathers!(to!say!nothing!of!lords!
and! masters),! the! state,! or! nations! and! religions.! Thus,! examining! the! iconography! of!
motherhood! in! the! twentieth! century! inevitably! means! beholding! a! process! of!
usurpation! whereby! men! are! responsible! for! representing! the! maternal! and! its! cases.!
Analyzing!the!representation!of!motherhood!therefore!means!asking!first!and!foremost!
who! has! the! right! to! make! decisions! regarding! bodies! and! desires,! and! who! has! the!
right!to!represent!them.!It!means!trying!to!understand!and!redefine!the!position!of!the!
individual!with!respect!to!herself,!the!state,!religion!and!others.!!
Through! the! analysis! of! works! of! art! and! other! visual! materials,! The$ Great$
Mother$ tells! the! story! of! these! clashes! and! the! relations! constantly! severed! and!
rewoven!during!the!twentieth!century.!To!be!more!precise,!this!exhibition!composes!a!
visual!history!that!is!devoted!not!so!much!to!maternity!as!a!vague,!abstract!concept!as!it!
is! to! the! attempt! made! by! many! women! in! the! twentieth! century! to! emancipate!
themselves! from! maternity! as! an! unavoidable! fact! experienced! almost! as! biological!
imprisonment.! It! speaks! of! many! women’s! desires! to! be! more! than! just! mothers.! For!
many! of! the! women! artists! of! the! early! twentieth! century! featured! here,! motherhood!
!
was! a! responsibility! to! be! refused,! a! problem! to! be! avoided,! a! prison! from! which! to!
escape.!Many!of!the!stories!gathered!together!in!this!great!and!tormented!family!album!
speak! of! broken! marriages! and! abandoned! children,! of! a! need! for! independence! that!
often! leads! to! painful! consequences.! The! specters! of! a! tradition! of! female! oppression!
can!still!be!discerned!even!beneath!the!proclamations!and!manifestos!of!the!historical!
avantNgarde! movements,! which! often! called! for! new! relations! between! the! sexes! and!
new,! liberated! desires.! Even! the! most! emancipated! women! among! the! Futurists,!
Dadaists,! and! Surrealists! were! subjected! to! the! harshest! violence.!
!
The! most! devastating! image! of! this! desire! to! escape! from! the! suffocation! of!
tradition! is! Meret! Oppenheim’s! Votivbild$ (Würgeengel)$ [Votive! picture! (Strangling!
angel)]! (1931),! which! shows! a! woman! holding! a! baby! with! its! throat! cut.! The! work’s!
most! obvious! iconographic! points! of! reference! are! the! stories! of! the! Massacre! of! the!
Innocents! and! of! the! destroying! angel! sent! to! slay! Egypt’s! firstborn! in! the! book! of!
Exodus.!Actually,!as!Oppenheim!herself!explained,!she!produced!this!extremely!violent!
work!first!and!foremost!as!a!sort!of!talisman!to!avoid!getting!pregnant!so!that!she!could!
instead! devote! herself! to! art.! Before! the! pill! was! invented,! it! was! through! the! magical!
power!of!art!that!she!sought!to!ward!off!the!threat!of!unwanted!pregnancy.2!!
As!Simone!de!Beauvoir!wrote!in!The$Second$Sex$(1949),!one!of!the!cornerstones!
of!The$Great$Mother,!throughout!the!twentieth!century!all!rebels!attack!the!figure!of!the!
mother.3! It! is! precisely! this! clash! between! tradition! and! emancipation! that! forms! the!
very!core!of!this!exhibition,!not!in!any!purely!antiNconformist!spirit!but!rather!because!
an! examination! of! the! attack! launched! on! the! institution! of! motherhood—and! by!
extension!the!traditional!family—reveals!a!transversal!history!of!the!art!and!culture!of!
the! twentieth! century! in! which! art! claims! the! right! to! initiate! social! renewal.! What!
emerges! from! many! of! the! works! presented! is! indeed! a! utopian! vision! that! expresses!
the!desire!for!radical!social!change.!If!we!know!how!to!look!at!them,!many!of!the!works!
can! be! read,! perhaps! between! the! lines,! as! sociological! experiments! or! reflections! of!
wouldNbe! anthropologists.! They! are! models! for! new! relations! between! the! sexes! and!
serve!as!outlines!for!new!types!of!social!organization!and!new,!unconventional!families,!
plans! for! new! forms! of! aggregation,! blueprints! of! possible! new! worlds.! More! or! less!
explicitly,! many! of! the! artists! featured! express! the! attempt! to! imagine! not! only! new!
works! of! art! but! also! entirely! new! societies! in! which! sexual! roles,! desires,! and! bodies!
can! be! dismantled! and! reshaped! in! accordance! with! unprecedented! geometries! and!
hierarchies.!
!
Of$Woman$Born$
$
In! her! moving! book! Of$ Woman$ Born$ (1976),! significantly! subtitled! Motherhood$ as$
Institution$and$Experience,!the!American!poet!and!writer!Adrienne!Rich!begins!with!a!
quotation!from!Dante:!“But!to!explain!the!good!I!found,!I!will!speak!of!the!other!things!I!
there! discerned.”4! In! other! words,! rather! than! speaking! just! about! the! good! of!
motherhood,!Rich!immediately!puts!us!on!guard!and!admits!that!her!view!of!it!will!be!
more! nuanced,! complex,! and! sometimes! even! brutal,! perhaps! simply! because! she! has!
experienced!it!in!real!life!as!a!woman!and!not!through!images!created!by!others,!mostly!
!
men.! Of$ Woman$ Born—and! this! exhibition,! which! owes! a! great! deal! to! the! book! in!
conceptual! and! emotive! terms—tells! the! tale! of! one! of! the! major! dramas! of! the!
twentieth! century:! the! path! of! liberation! from! a! supposed! biological! destiny! that!
reduces!women!to!nothing!other!than!mothers.!
Sigmund!Freud,!who!transformed!our!perception!of!the!family!by!revealing!it!as!
a! seething! mass! of! repressed! desires,! remained! immersed! in! a! nineteenthNcentury!
conception! of! sexual! roles! and! was! therefore! able! to! claim! with! no! embarrassment! at!
the!beginning!of!the!twentieth!century!that!anatomy!is!destiny.!Fifty!years!later,!Simone!
de!Beauvoir!stated!that!a!person!is!not!born!a!woman!but!rather!becomes!one.5!It!is!this!
transformation! that! the! exhibition! seeks! to! address,! this! transition! from! the! view! of!
woman! as! a! oneNdimensional! creature,! reduced! to! her! biological! condition,! to! a!
conception!of!her!as!a!polymorphous,!manifold,!complex!subject—from!passive!object!
to!active!subject!of!her!own!representation.!
The! path! of! emancipation! is! of! course! never! so! straight! and! precise! as! the!
juxtaposition! of! these! quotations! from! Freud! and! Beauvoir! might! suggest.! And! above!
all,!the!transition!in!question!is!not!yet—or!never!will!be?—successfully!concluded.!On!
the! contrary,! as! a! quick! look! at! the! works! in! the! catalogue! confirms,! this! tug! of! war!
between!oppression!and!emancipation!is!constantly!renewed!during!the!course!of!the!
twentieth! century.! The! battle! fought! on! the! female! body! knows! no! truce.! With! their!
frenzies! and! fractures,! the! bodies! presented! in! these! pages! constitute! countless!
attempts! to! rebel! against! anatomy.! Many! of! the! works! on! view! present! the! refusal! of!
any! alleged! destiny! imprinted! on! the! flesh! in! favor! of! a! fantastic! anatomy! molded! by!
desire.!
!
Rich! opens! her! book! with! an! assertion! that! is! illuminating! in! its! disarming!
simplicity:! “All! human! life! on! the! planet! is! born! of! woman.! The! one! unifying,!
incontrovertible!experience!shared!by!all!women!and!men!is!that!monthsNlong!period!
we! spent! unfolding! inside! a! woman’s! body.”6! She! goes! on! to! note,! in! agreement! with!
Freud! and! many! other! twentiethNcentury! psychologists! and! analysts,! that! every! man!
and! every! woman! is! under! their! mother’s! power! during! early! infancy.! This! fact! alone!
would!be!sufficient!to!explain!the!recurrence!in!dreams,!myths,!and!legends!of!an!image!
of!the!mother!as!a!powerful!creature,!of!a!female!archetype!endowed!with!divine!and!
superhuman! powers,! and! even! of! a! matriarchal! golden! age! governed! by! women.7!It! is!
this! image! of! the! mother! as! a! numinous! power! that! many! psychologists! believe! they!
can!detect!in!various!manifestations!of!cultures!different!and!distant!from!one!another.!
The! archetype! of! the! Great! Mother—a! primordial! image! of! the! mother! as! a! sovereign!
force!of!creation!that!emerges!in!various!cultural!and!historical!contexts—is!a!concept!
as!fascinating!as!it!is!complex!and!hard!to!accept,!grounded!as!it!is!in!the!assumption!
that!all!humankind,!regardless!of!culture,!shares!the!same!knowledge!and!experience.!
And! yet,! even! if! we! resist! any! temptation! to! generalize,! how! can! we! deny! that! the!
shadow!of!the!mother—even!if!lost!or!absent—looms!over!all!human!beings?!Not!only!
is!all!human!life!on!the!planet!born!of!woman,!as!Rich!reminds!us,!but!also,!and!indeed!
still!more!evidently,!we!have!all!been!sons!and!daughters.!
The! title! of! this! exhibition! is! borrowed! from! a! book! on! the! archetype! of! the!
Great!Mother!by!the!psychologist!Erich!Neumann.!Die$große$Mutter,!first!published!in!
!
English! as! The$ Great$ Mother$ in! 1955,8! is! a! curious! text! full! of! digressions! and!
observations,!even!though!it!has!now!lost!practically!all!scientific!credibility.!A!disciple!
of!Carl!Gustav!Jung,!Neumann!developed!this!long!and!tortuous!study!over!a!period!of!
more!than!eighteen!years,!during!which!he!examined!thousands!of!images,!sculptures,!
and! representations! of! female! divinities.! These! were! mostly! collected! by! Olga! FröbeN
Kapteyn,!whose!archive!of!photographs!and!iconographic!material!began!precisely!as!a!
result! of! dialogue! with! Jung,! who! had! always! been! fascinated! with! what! he! called!
Urbilder—deep,!primordial,!archetypal!images!capable!of!migrating!from!one!culture!to!
another!and!existing!in!a!sort!of!collective!unconscious.!
Olga!FröbeNKapteyn!is!a!figure!from!the!visionary!Europe!of!the!early!twentieth!
century,! a! largerNthanNlife! character! whose! biography! seems! almost! to! have! been!
purposively!written!to!ensure!her!legendary!status.!Born!in!London!to!a!Dutch!family!
whose! friends! included! the! anarchist! Peter! Kropotkin! and! the! future! Nobel! laureate!
George!Bernard!Shaw,!she!grew!up!in!England!but!soon!moved!to!Switzerland.!Deeply!
interested! in! Theosophy! and! Eastern! philosophy,! an! amateur! artist! of! outstanding!
talent,!aspiring!psychologist,!and!spiritualist,!FröbeNKapteyn!became!the!organizational!
and! financial! force! behind! the! Eranos! conferences,! held! in! Ascona,! Switzerland,! every!
summer! since! 1933! and! attended! by! psychologists,! historians,! and! writers! of! the!
caliber! of! Carl! Gustav! Jung,! Gershom! Scholem,! Karl! Kerenyi,! Mircea! Eliade,! Herbert!
Read,! and! James! Hillman.9! For! over! ten! years,! FröbeNKapteyn! scoured! libraries! and!
archives! in! Europe! and! the! United! States! to! build! up! a! vast! collection! of! over! six!
thousand! images! gathered! together! in! the! Archive! for! Research! in! Archetypal!
Symbolism! at! the! Warburg! Institute! in! London! and! the! C.! G.! Jung! Foundation! in! New!
York.10! FröbeNKapteyn! collected! over! three! hundred! and! fifty! images! related! to! the!
Great! Mother,! many! of! which! were! presented! in! an! exhibition! organized! in! Ascona!
within! the! framework! of! the! 1938! Eranos! conference,! which! was! devoted! entirely! to!
this! archetype.11! On! examining! this! procession! of! images—which! includes! sculptures!
and! paintings! of! Venus,! Isis,! Athena,! Diana,! Aphrodite,! Demeter,! Gaia,! Rhea,! Cybele,!
Ceres,! Kali,! and! innumerable! Madonnas! as! well! as! divinities! of! the! earth! and! serpent!
goddesses—it!is!easy!to!be!beguiled!by!the!idea!of!humanity!worshipping!woman!as!a!
divinity!and!a!mother!in!various!cultures!and!historical!moments.!Even!if!we!reject!any!
generalization! and! give! little! credit! to! the! myth! of! the! collective! unconscious,! it! is!
difficult,!upon!beholding!this!succession!of!images,!to!deny!that!the!figure!of!a!powerful!
mother!is!recurrent!in!the!history!of!art!and!visual!culture,!both!through!the!centuries!
and!in!very!distant!latitudes!and!longitudes.!
The!history!of!art!is!full!of!representations!of!female!divinities,!maternal!idols,!
goddesses!of!abundance,!fertility,!and!pregnancy.!Neumann’s!book!also!describes!them!
as! rulers! of! time,! queens! of! birth,! and! protectors! of! food! and! harvests.! It! is! no!
exaggeration!to!say!that!the!first!known!works!of!art!in!human!history!portray!women!
and! mothers.! In! the! caves! of! Chauvet! in! France,! painted! more! than! thirty! thousand!
years! ago,! the! only! human! figure! to! appear! among! the! countless! representations! of!
animals!is!a!woman!with!her!genital!organs!on!display,!while!other!images!of!vulvas!are!
carved! into! the! rocky! walls.! Moreover,! the! first! known! human! sculptures! depict!
curvaceous! women,! often! described! by! historians! and! archaeologists! as! mothers,! the!
!
best! known! of! which! is! the! Venus! of! Willendorf,! carved! over! twentyNfive! thousand!
years! ago.! The! introduction! to! Neumann’s! study! also! reminds! us! that! out! of! all! the!
Stone!Age!sculptures!known!to!exist!in!the!midN1950s,!fiftyNfive!were!of!female!figures!
while!only!five!were!male.!!
It! is! unfortunately! not! known! whether! these! images—and! many! others! dating!
from!later!centuries—were!created!by!men!or!women!and!whether!they!really!were!an!
expression! of! matriarchal! cultures! as! claimed! by! various! historians! and!
anthropologists,! whose! theories! have,! however,! often! been! proved! groundless.12!What!
these! images! certainly! do! demonstrate! is! that! woman! was! venerated! for! centuries!
precisely!as!a!force!of!creation!and!as!a!mother.!It!is!equally!impossible!to!say!whether!
women,! the! real! ones! of! flesh! and! blood,! were! oppressed! in! the! cultures! that!
worshipped! some! version! of! the! mother! goddess! or! creatrix.! After! all,! these!
representations!could!simply!show!that!scopophilia!or!voyeurism!is!a!male!vice!as!old!
as!the!Ice!Age.!These!figurative!remains!do,!however,!reveal!recognition!of!the!strength!
and!power!of!woman!and!her!centrality!with!respect!to!all!that!is!holy!and!necessary.!
Rich! also! raises! the! question! of! what! kind! of! power! women! exercised! or! were!
worshipped!for!in!the!ancient!and!preNpatriarchal!societies,!and!suggests!that!women!
and! mothers! were! worshipped! not! for! power! wielded! over! others! in! the! form! of!
violence!but,!rather,!for!their!power!to!transform!the!world.13!
The! question! of! power! is! central! to! this! exhibition! and! to! the! story! it! seeks! to!
tell.! The$ Great$ Mother$ could! be! described! in! a! nutshell! as! an! exhibition! about! the!
relations!between!women!and!power!during!the!twentieth!century:!not!only!the!power!
of! generation! and! transformation! that! Rich! talks! about! but! also,! and! above! all,! the!
power!denied!(as!Beauvoir!wrote,!“It!was!as!Mother!that!woman!was!fearsome;!it!is!in!
maternity! that! she! must! be! transfigured! and! enslaved”14)! and! the! power! conquered!
through! the! many! battles! of! the! twentieth! century.! A! number! of! the! works! on! view!
present! the! imprinting! of! power—of! the! state,! the! father,! religion,! authority! in!
general—on! the! female! body,! incised! into! the! skin! like! the! sentence! carved! into! the!
bodies!of!the!condemned!prisoners!in!Kafka’s!1914!story!In$the$Penal$Colony.15!In!other!
works! and! images,! many! artists! instead! present! their! escape! from! the! prescription! of!
gender!and!sexual!roles.!It!is!no!coincidence!that!the!myths!of!the!hermaphrodite,!the!
androgyne,! and! asexual! maternity—brought! about! by! divine! grace,! mechanical!
coupling,!or!magical!and!scientific!experiments!of!parthenogenesis—recur!in!the!works!
from!over!a!century!of!art!history.!In!this!sense,!The$Great$Mother$is!an!exhibition!that!
talks! not! only! about! woman! giving! birth! to! a! child! but! also—and! indeed! above! all—
about!woman!giving!birth!to!herself,!about!giving!herself!a!new!life.!Actually,!taking!up!
a!feminist!slogan!of!the!1970s,!Rich!wrote:!“I!am!woman!giving!birth!to!myself.”16!These!
words!are!echoed!by!the!writings!of!the!art!critic!and!feminist!activist!Carla!Lonzi,!who!
stands! alongside! Beauvoir! and! Rich! in! the! allNfemale! trinity! of! the! exhibition’s! great!
mothers:! “Let! us! no! longer! be! regarded! as! the! preservers! of! the! species.! We! give!
children! to! no! one,! neither! to! man! nor! to! the! state.! We! give! them! to! themselves! and!
give!ourselves!back!to!ourselves.”17!
!
!
!
Freud’s$Dark$Continent$
$
The! first! images! on! exhibit! include! works! by! women! artists—such! as! the! films! of! the!
director!Alice!GuyNBlaché,!a!contemporary!of!the!Lumière!brothers!but!far!less!known!
than! her! male! colleagues—that! represent! motherhood! as! idyllic! and! enchanted! in!
order!to!remind!us!that!motherhood!is!not!only!a!battlefield!but!also!a!source!of!joy!and!
tenderness.!Gertrude!Käsebier’s!photographs!are!perhaps!among!the!sweetest!images!
on!display,!steeped!as!they!are!in!references!to!Christian!iconography!and!immersed!in!
pearlNlike! purity.! Though! apparently! conventional,! these! photographs! are! actually! the!
work!of!a!free!and!independent!spirit,!one!of!the!first!women!in!the!twentieth!century!
to!establish!herself!commercially!as!an!artist!and!photographer.!Motherhood!as!seen!by!
Käsebier! is! the! space! of! a! celestial! union! between! mother! and! child! from! which! the!
paternal!figure!is!symptomatically!excluded.!When!the!father!and!husband!appears!on!
the!scene,!he!takes!the!form!of!a!suffocating!constraint.!Käsebier!was!to!represent!the!
institution!of!marriage!and!the!family!a!few!years!later!with!the!image!of!an!ox!and!a!
cow!chained!together!and!crushed!beneath!the!weight!of!the!yoke!of!tradition.!
It!is!in!this!context!of!affects—whose!roots!are!embedded!in!nineteenthNcentury!
culture—that!psychoanalysis!spread!like!a!plague,!to!borrow!a!metaphor!used!by!Freud!
himself! at! the! start! of! his! trip! to! America.18! It! is! widely! known! that! Freud! was! so!
convinced!of!the!revolutionary!nature!of!his!reflections!that!he!decided!to!postdate!the!
publication!of!his!Interpretation$of$Dreams,!assigning!it!the!symbolic!date!of!1900!even!
though!it!was!actually!published!in!1899.!The!Viennese!neurologist!knew!that!the!new!
century!would!grow!up!under!the!influence!of!his!theory,!with!Oedipus!established!as!!
the! new! monarch! of! the! twentieth! century.! In! Freud’s! pages! the! Familienroman,! or!
family!romance!(to!borrow!another!of!his!terms)!is!transformed!into!a!tangle!of!sexual!
desires,!drives,!and!tensions.!The!image!of!motherhood!and!the!family!has!been!forever!
altered.!
Freud’s!thought!and!writings!were!to!exert!a!deep!impact!on!twentiethNcentury!
Western!culture!as!a!whole,!and!this!exhibition!could!indeed!be!read!as!the!story!of!his!
influence!on!its!visual!culture—an!influence!that!also!had!a!reverse!effect!through!the!
rejection! and! criticism! of! his! theories,! of! which! many! women! writers! and! feminist!
analysts!have!been!acute!interpreters!as!well!as!fierce!opponents.19!
Freud!is!recalled!in!the!exhibition!through!a!photograph!of!him!and!his!mother,!
Amalia,! borrowed! from! the! Freud! Museum,! which! is! housed! in! his! former! London!
home.! This! photograph! is! placed! beside! a! reproduction! of! the! 1808! painting! Oedipus$
solves$the$riddle$of$the$Sphinx$by! Ingres,! which! Freud! hung! on! the! wall! over! the! couch!
used!by!his!patients.!!
The!idea!that!psychoanalysis!was!born!as!a!visual!science!equipped!with!its!own!
iconography!is!perhaps!one!that!would!merit!investigation!elsewhere.!Freud!must!have!
been!clearly!aware!of!this!when!he!described!psychoanalysis!as!a!form!of!archaeology!
and! surrounded! himself! in! his! office! with! ancient! sculptures,! effigies,! and! images!
arranged! so! as! to! create! a! private! museum! resembling! a! personal! memory! palace.! As!
reflected!in!his!collection!of!over!two!thousand!items,!Freud’s!visual!imagery!appears!
to! have! been! populated! by! womenNsphinxes,! warlike! Athenas! and! Venuses,!
!
representations!of!Isis!and!Artemis,!and!sculptures!of!Eros:!“a!dreamlike!world,”!to!use!
the!very!words!with!which!he!described!the!Louvre’s!collection!of!antiquities.20!
Likening! woman! to! a! sphinx,! as! mysterious! and! pitiless! as! the! mythological!
creature,! was! a! recurrent! topos$ in! the! art! and! literature! of! the! era,! as! attested,! for!
example,! by! Edvard! Munch’s! coeval! etching! of! Woman$in$Three$Stages,! also! known! as!
Sphinx.! Contemporary! with! The$ Interpretation$ of$ Dreams$ are! also! Alfred! Kubin’s!
drawings! and! engravings! of! dreamlike! landscapes;! in! these! as! in! other! works! of! the!
time,!women!and!their!sexual!lives!were!presented!as!what!Freud!somewhat!unhappily!
referred!to!as!a!“dark!continent.”21!
It! is! precisely! this! Freudian! slip! that! David! Hammons! refers! to! in! his! 1995!
sculpture! of! the! same! name;! in! this! work,! a! nightgown! conceals! an! African! sculpture,!
almost!as!if!to!suggest!that!the!unconscious!is!not!a!territory!free!from!colonial!desires!
and!that!maternity!still!remains,!a!century!after!Freud,!an!experience!of!subjection!and!
exploitation.!!
!
The$Woman:Machine$and$the$Avant:Garde$
$
In!contrast!to!Hammons’s!sculpture,!with!its!references!to!archaic!cultures!and!to!the!
unconscious!as!a!dark!continent!immersed!in!a!primordial!forest,!the!gleaming!surfaces!
of! Constantin! Brancusi’s! Le$ nouveau$ né$ [The! newborn]! (1920)! introduce! one! of! the!
cruxes! of! this! exhibition! and! of! the! iconography! of! motherhood! in! the! twentieth!
century.! With! its! rounded! forms,! the! sculpture! recalls! an! artillery! shell! or! the!
streamlined!body!of!an!automobile.!Brancusi’s!Le$nouveau$né$is!similar!to!the!“headlight!
child”! conceived! by! Marcel! Duchamp.! Like! the! nickel! and! platinum! enfant$ phare$
dreamed! up! by! Duchamp,! Brancusi’s! baby! is! a! perfectly! aerodynamic! object! in! which!
nature! is! synthesized! into! a! Platonic! idea! and! reduced! to! a! concise! mechanical!
stylization,!a!form!frozen!in!an!erotic!icebox.22!
It! is! precisely! this! superimposition! of! natural! and! artificial,! visceral! and!
mechanical,!that!distinguishes!the!imagery!of!the!historical!avantNgarde!movements—
especially!Futurism!and!Dada—as!well!as!the!visual!culture!of!the!first!two!decades!of!
the! twentieth! century! in! general.! In! the! manifestos! and! works! of! the! Futurists! and!
Dadaists,!but!also!in!the!advertising!of!the!period,!the!machine!is!often!presented!as!a!
sexual! object! and! a! metaphor! for! woman.! Production! and! reproduction! exchanged!
places! and! overlapped! in! the—mostly! male—fantasies! of! the! early! twentieth! century.!
The!womanNmachine!was!an!instrument!of!pleasure!and!torture,!sometimes!tame!and!
obedient,!sometimes!crazy!and!out!of!control.23!
In! 1909,! declaring! his! love! of! the! roaring! racing! car! as! something! still! more!
beautiful! than! the! ancientWinged$ Victory$ of$ Samothrace,! Filippo! Tommaso! Marinetti!
proclaimed!that!Futurism!was!grounded!in!contempt!for!women.!A!few!years!later,!he!
was!to!publish!a!manual!on!seduction!and!imagine!future!societies!based!on!free!love!
and!the!raising!of!children!by!the!state.24!Meanwhile,!the!Futurist!and!avantNgarde!artist!
Umberto! Boccioni,! the! champion! of! a! completely! transformed! sensibility! in! the!
Manifesto$ of$ Futurist$ Painting,! spent! hours! portraying! his! mother! in! over! sixty!
paintings,! sketches,! sculptures,! drawings,! and! engravings.! While! it! would! be! easy! to!
!
read! the! first! symptoms! of! a! childish,! “mama’s! boy”! Italian! culture! in! Boccioni’s!
attachment!to!the!family,!above!and!beyond!any!facile!irony,!the!artist’s!portraits!of!his!
mother!make!explicit!the!intricate!interweaving!of!innovation!and!tradition,!liberation!
and! repression,! to! be! found! in! so! many! other! works! of! the! historical! avantNgarde!
movements.!
Paradoxically! enough,! and! despite! the! apparent! misogyny! of! so! many! Futurist!
proclamations,!it!is!precisely!in!the!extended!and!dysfunctional!family!of!the!historical!
avantNgarde! movements! that! many! women! were! to! find! tools! for! their! emancipation,!
providing! that! one! is! capable! of! distinguishing! these! tools! from! the! many! oppressive!
gender! stereotypes! shared! by! nearly! all! the! male! artists! of! the! time.! In! the! works! of!
Benedetta,! Valentine! de! SaintNPoint,! Mina! Loy,! Marisa! Mori,! Regina,! Enif! Robert,! and!
Rosa!Rosà,!for!example,!a!complex!image!of!Futurism!takes!shape!that!conveys!a!very!
vivid! idea! of! the! scale! of! the! social! and! cultural! transformations! introduced! by! the!!
avantNgarde.!Many!of!these!women!artists!were!also!vigorous!polemicists,!writers,!and!
reformers!of!sexist!attitudes!and,!in!some!cases,!of!sexual!habits.!The!gap!between!the!
highNflown!slogans!of!the!manifestos!and!the!everyday!practice!of!the!avantNgarde!was!
filled!by!the!work!and!dedication!of!many!of!these!women!artists,!for!whom!the!avantN
garde!was!not!only!a!matter!of!Words!in!Freedom!but,!moreover,!of!putting!themselves!
on!the!front!line.25!
The!image!of!the!womanNmachine!that!emerges!from!the!works!of!the!Dadaist!
groups!active!in!Europe!and!America!in!the!first!decades!of!the!twentieth!century!is!not!
very! different.! The! sexual! connotations! of! the! thenNpredominant! mechanization! are!
indeed!often!still!more!explicit!in!Dada.!The!works!of!Marcel!Duchamp,!Francis!Picabia,!
and! Man! Ray,! for! example,! present! the! coupling! of! automatic! devices,! electrical!
marionettes,! and! mechanical! brides.! Cinematic! orgasms! of! sovereign! matrons! and!
onanistic! practices! of! bachelor! machines! take! place! in! these! allegories! of! sacred! and,!
more! often,! profane! love.! Dadaist! works! feature! a! mechanical! ballet! in! which! desire!
appears!to!be!governed!by!the!same!laws!as!obeyed!by!these!machines:!a!hydraulics!of!
the! libido! not! too! dissimilar! from! what! Freud! imagined! in! the! same! period! with! his!
mechanisms!of!sublimation!and!repression.!!
The!machine,!described!as!a!“daughter!born!without!a!mother”!by!Picabia!in!a!
book!from!1918,!crowns!the!male!delirium!of!omnipotence!and!dream!of!usurping!the!
female!power!of!giving!birth.!And!yet,!as!in!Futurism,!these!misogynistic!attitudes!were!
also!mixed!and!entwined!in!Dada!with!a!pitiless!critique!of!the!traditional!institutions!
of!the!family!and!sexuality,!an!attack!that!opened!up!new!spaces!of!emancipation!and!
new! territories! of! eccentricity.! In! Duchamp’s! works,! for! example,! we! can! see! a!
celebration!of!woman!as!a!force!superior!to!both!man!and!machine.!As!he!reminds!us,!
the! bride! is! always! “on! top,”! seated! on! the! highest! throne! in! The$ Large$ Glass$ (1915–
1923).!With!his!frequent!disguises!and!changes!of!gender,!from!Rrose!Sélavy!to!Mona!
Lisa!with!a!mustache,!Duchamp!imagines!a!history!of!art!with!no!fathers!and!no!lords!
and!no!masters!in!which!the!very!idea!of!the!author!and!authority!is!rebuffed.!We!could!
say!that!for!the!Dadaists,!art!is!not!so!much!celibate!as!it!is!an!orphan!and,!moreover,!
fatherless.26!
!
At! the! same! time,! Dada! was! born! right! in! the! heart! of! dramatic! social! and!
cultural! changes.! This! was! the! period! of! the! Suffragette! movement! and! the! new,!
emancipated!woman;!of!the!AngloNSaxon!flapper!and!the!French!garçonne;!of!the!Great!
War,! with! fathers! and! brothers! away! at! the! front! and! women! at! home! rediscovering!
matriarchal! forms! of! sisterhood;! of! radical! sexual! revolutions! and! new! rights—above!
all,! the! vote—vigorously! demanded! by! women.! Many! male! and! female! artists! did! not!
conceal!their!support!for!these!epochNmaking!transformations.!The!fight!for!the!vote!is!
repeatedly! interwoven! with! the! story! told! here—part! of! a! social! movement! that!
affected!the!history!of!art!and!the!lives!of!the!artists.!As!the!slogan!of!one!of!the!posters!
of! the! early! twentiethNcentury! Suffragette! movement! put! it,! “Women! Bring! All! Voters!
Into!the!World—Let!Women!Vote”.!
For!too!long,!art!historians!have!failed,!especially!in!Italy,!to!read!artwork!from!
this!era!in!the!context!of!radical!social!change.!And!while!it!is!normal!today!to!speak!of!
“postgender”! and! “postNhuman,”! it! should! not! be! forgotten! that! these! concepts! came!
into! being! with! Dada.! It! is! also! worth! recalling! that! many! of! these! ideas! manifest!
themselves!most!clearly!in!the!works!and!lives!of!women!artists.!Connected!by!more!or!
less! official! membership! of! the! Dada! movement,! which! is! never! presented! as! a! single!
unified! front,! very! different! women! artists! like! Sophie! TaeuberNArp,! Emmy! Hennings,!
Hannah! Höch,! Elsa! von! FreytagNLoringhoven,! and! Mina! Loy! shared! not! only! complex!
and! indeed! often! tragic! lives! but! also! the! rejection! of! any! rigid! definition.! Fluidity! in!
artistic! and! sometimes! also! sexual! terms! and! the! demolition! of! any! distinction! and!
hierarchy! between! minor! and! major,! applied! and! decorative,! object! and! performance,!
are!the!most!important!contributions!that!these!women!artists!made!to!the!art!of!the!
future.!In!this!sense,!their!legacy!fully!realized!the!radical!premises!of!Dada,!including!
the! most! nihilistic.! These! artists! took! the! tenets! of! Dada! to! their! logical! conclusion,!
sometimes!to!the!point!of!jeopardizing!the!very!survival!of!their!work!and!their!careers,!
of!which!nothing!survives!other!than!faded!photographs!in!some!cases.27!
The! dangerous! liaisons! between! sexuality! and! technology! took! on! still! more!
disturbing! overtones,! imbued! with! a! new! erotic! charge,! in! the! Surrealist! movement.!
Chosen!by!its!founder!André!Breton,!the!most!celebrated!image!to!describe!the!poetics!
of! Surrealism—“the! chance! encounter! of! a! sewing! machine! and! an! umbrella! on! a!
dissecting! table,”! a! phrase! borrowed! from! Lautréamont’s! Les$ Chants$ de$ Maldoror—is!
not!so!far!from!the!bachelor!machines!of!Duchamp!&!Co.!But!while!Dada!appeared!to!
champion! the! unproductiveness! of! the! machine,! rebelling! against! the! modern! cult! of!
efficiency,!Surrealism!instead!appears!to!have!been!wholly!immersed!in!the!mythology!
of!creation.!For!the!Surrealists,!however,!rather!than!industrial!creation,!what!mattered!
was! the! genesis! of! a! fertile! alternative! universe! of! oneiric! images! born! out! of! hybrid!
couplings.! The! automatism! of! Breton! and! the! Surrealists! had! nothing! to! do! with!
machinery!and!robots;!it!was!predicated!instead!on!the!free!flow!of!libidinal!energy.!!
Of! all! the! avantNgarde! movements,! Surrealism! is! indeed! the! one! that! most!
explicitly!and!systematically!addresses!the!question!of!desire,!the!function!of!eros,!the!
transformative! power! of! love,! and! even! the! analysis! of! sexuality.! Surrealism! placed!
woman!at!the!heart!of!these!interests,!the!nerve!center!of!its!artistic!vision,!elevated—
or!relegated—to!the!status!of!muse,!vestal!virgin,!priestess,!sorceress,!witch,!and!spirit!
!
guide! to! the! depths! of! the! unconscious.! Despite! its! avowed! nonconformism,!
Surrealism’s!cult!of!woman!is!always!based!on!passive!female!roles!drawn!from!courtly!
love!not!too!far!removed!from!those!imposed!on!medieval!ladies.!
It!is!precisely!in!virtue!of!this!fundamental!ambiguity!with!respect!to!women—
celebrated!as!a!source!of!inspiration!but!confined!to!an!ancillary!position—that!pages!
and! pages! have! been! written! on! the! sexual! politics! of! Surrealism! without! as! yet!
reaching! any! definitive! verdict! on! its! male! chauvinism.! Consideration! of! the! femmeM
enfant,!hysterical!women,!and!vamps!of!Breton’s!novels,!the!predatory!women!of!Max!
Ernst,! the! dolls! of! Hans! Bellmer,! the! nudes! of! René! Magritte,! the! immaculate!
conceptions!of!Paul!Éluard,!and!the!“visible!woman”!of!Salvador!Dalí!certainly!conveys!
an! immediate! impression! of! Surrealism! as! a! men’sNonly! club! in! which! woman! offers!
herself! passively! as! an! object! of! consumption! for! male! fantasies.! The! photograph!
showing! Simone! Kahn,! Breton’s! first! wife,! as! the! only! woman! among! a! group! of!
Surrealists! is! just! one! of! the! many! wellNknown! examples! of! the! French! avantNgarde’s!
more!or!less!veiled!male!chauvinism.!
At!the!same!time,!however,!many!women!artists!found!in!Surrealism!the!poetic!
tools!and!space!to!escape!from!the!more!suffocating!gender!stereotypes.!In!summary,!
we!could!say!that!Surrealism!contained!within!itself!the!antidote!to!its!own!excesses!of!
misogyny! and! that,! for! this! reason,! many! female! artists! gravitated! toward! the!
movement.! In! the! works! of! many! women! artists! close! to! Surrealism—including!
Leonora! Carrington,! Leonor! Fini,! Valentine! Hugo,! Frida! Kahlo,! Dorothea! Tanning,! and!
Remedios!Varo,!to!mention!just!some!of!those!included!in!the!exhibition—we!find!the!
use! of! iconographic! motifs! and! references! from! ancient! mythology! and! the! history! of!
art! in! which! female! figures! appear! in! positions! of! power.! Great! warrior! mothers,!
Amazons,! chthonic! divinities,! rulers! of! the! stars! and! the! heavens,! as! well! as! other!
creatures! endowed! with! magical! powers! fill! the! canvases! and! collages! of! the! women!
Surrealists,! from! which! emerge! an! eccentric! and! syncretic! pantheon! of! new! female!
divinities!and!great!mothers!of!creation.28!
To! be! sure,! it! would! be! better! to! avoid! such! blackNandNwhite! distinctions!
between! male! and! female! artists,!which!end!up!reiterating!the!very!biological! destiny!
that!many!of!the!women!artists!featured!here!sought!to!escape!by!cultivating!a!fluidity!
of!gender!and!sexual!roles.!In!this!sense,!perhaps!the!bestNknown!and!most!interesting!
example! in! Surrealism—albeit! a! heterodox! branch—is! that! of! Claude! Cahun,! whose!
crossNdressing! invented! a! mobile! sexuality! that! eludes! any! binary! simplification.! It! is!
not! surprising! that! in! portraying! her! father—as! in! the! work! displayed! in! The$ Great$
Mother—Cahun! presented! him! simultaneously! as! an! hermaphrodite! and! an! eunuch,! a!
voodoo!fetish!pierced!in!an!antiNpatriarchal!exorcism.!
That! some! of! these! works! should! also! be! read! in! the! light! of! the! coeval! birth!
policies! of! the! European! great! powers! is! a! detail! that! would! not! have! escaped! the!
Surrealists.! In! 1920,! France! passed! a! law! prohibiting! any! form! of! contraception! and!
introducing! the! death! penalty! for! assistance! in! abortions! (the! last! woman! to! be!
guillotined! in! public! for! this! crime! was! executed! in! 1943).29! Seen! in! this! context,! the!
bodies! depicted! by! the! Surrealists! appear! to! oppose! the! reassuring! image! that! the!
totalitarian! states! were! constructing! in! the! same! period.! Unlike! the! madonnas! and!
!
athletes! dreamed! of! by! the! Fascist! regime! or! the! Kinder,$ Küche,$ Kirche$ [children,!
cooking,!church]!women!of!Nazism,!the!bodies!imagined!by!the!Surrealists!are!fragile,!
corrupt,!and!driven!by!unspeakable!desires!that!have!nothing!to!do!with!the!eugenicsN
inflected! image! dear! to! the! totalitarian! ideologies! of! the! 1930s.30! The! more! the! latter!
imagined! a! new,! standardized,! stateNapproved! body! focused! entirely! on! reproduction,!
the! more! the! Surrealists! appear! to! celebrate! a! convulsive,! disproportionate! body,! a!
body! with! no! organs,! in! which! pleasure! and! desire! are! radically! detached! from! any!
reproductive! purposes! whatsoever.! The! bodies! represented! by! the! Surrealists! work!
neither!for!the!army!nor!for!the!homeland.!They!give!children!to!no!one.!
!
The$Feminist$Turn$
$
Patricide,!having!recurred!as!a!theme!so!frequently!in!the!art!of!the!twentieth!century,!
has! established! itself! as! one! of! the! metaphors! most! commonly! used! for! the! clash!
between!generations!of!artists!and!the!subsequent!evolution!of!avantgarde!movements.!
Sons!kill!their!fathers!but!then!become!fathers!in!turn!and!succumb!to!a!new!wave!of!
rebellious!sons.!But!the!dynamic!becomes!still!more!frightening!when!it!is!not!Oedipus!
that!slays!his!father!but!a!woman.!
The!art!of!Louise!Bourgeois!revolves!around!the!“destruction!of!the!father,”!to!
borrow!the!title!of!a!work!that!she!chose!as!encapsulating!her!art!and!which!she!also!!
used! for! an! anthology! of! her! writings.31! Castration! and! emasculation! are! recurrent!
motifs!in!the!sculptures!of!this!artist,!who!has!repeatedly!described!her!experience!of!
family!life!as!a!succession!of!clashes,!abuse,!and!psychological!violence.!Her!entire!body!
of! work! is! constructed! around! the! theme! of! the! wound! and! the! cut:! a! wound! that! is!
mended! like! the! tapestries! restored! in! her! father’s! shop! but! also! the! wound! as! a!
metaphor! for! the! female! sexual! organ! and! for! the! severing! of! the! penis.! Among! her!
bestNknown!works,!Fillette$[Little!girl]!(1968/1999)!is!represented!as!a!severed!penis!
hanging! from! the! ceiling,! whose! testicles! also! resemble! the! generous! breasts! of! a!
Neolithic!mother!carving.!The!artist’s!pantheon!is!also!full!of!pregnant!pagan!divinities!
and! fertility! idols,! and! her! fetishes! include,! most! notably,! an! abundance! of! creatures!
that! are! either! androgynous! or! coupled! in! exhausting! embraces! in! which! male!
protuberances! and! female! rotundities! interlock! seamlessly.! Her! bodies! assimilate! the!
convulsive!anatomy!of!the!Surrealists’!bodies!and!combine!it!with!references!to!archaic!
cultures!to!create!a!personal!mythology!of!extraordinary!symbolic!power.!
Many! of! these! concerns! return! more! or! less! evidently! in! the! works! of! many!
women!artists!active!in!Europe,!the!United!States,!and!Latin!America!during!the!1960s!
and! 1970s.! Artists! as! different! as! Magdalena! Abakanowicz,! Ida! Applebroog,! Lynda!
Benglis,! Judy! Chicago,! Eva! Hesse,! Dorothy! Iannone,! Yayoi! Kusama,! Anna! Maria!
Maiolino,! Ana! Mendieta,! Marisa! Merz,! Annette! Messager,! Carolee! Schneeman,! and!
Nancy! Spero—whose! careers! occasionally! came! into! contact! despite! their! many!
differences,! albeit! without! giving! birth! to! a! unified! or! homogeneous! movement—
invented! a! new! vocabulary! of! images! in! which! biological! forms! and! mythological!
references!combine!to!give!new!centrality!to!the!female!body,!often!associated!in!their!
works!with!the!forces!of!nature!and!the!earth.!In!the!United!States!and!in!general!the!
!
EnglishNspeaking!world,!these!experiences,!which!in!many!cases!run!parallel!to!feminist!
activism!or!a!more!general!awareness!on!the!part!of!women!of!their!rights!and!powers,!
also! led! to! heated! debate! on! the! question! of! whether! there! is! such! a! thing! as! female,!
feminist,! or! women’s! art.! While! the! positions! adopted! are! very! different! and! the!
conclusions! reached! are! not! definitive,! the! discussions! in! magazines,! working! groups,!
and!exhibitions!helped!to!consolidate!a!sense!of!international!sisterhood.32!
At! the! same! time,! this! was! a! period! of! important! demands,! with! legislation! on!
abortion!and!the!freedom!of!choice!under!scrutiny!in!many!Western!nations,!as!well!as!
discussions!on!sexuality,!reproduction,!pleasure,!and!independence.!Millions!of!women!
all!over!the!world!were!galvanized!by!the!writings!of!authors!like!Shulamith!Firestone,!
Betty!Friedan,!Germaine!Greer,!Luce!Irigaray,!Kate!Millet,!Gloria!Steinem,!and!Monique!
Wittig.! The! fields! of! archaeology! and! history! saw! new! theories! and! efforts! to! seek!
evidence! supporting! the! myth! of! a! glorious! past! of! matriarchal! regimes! and!
gynocracies,! and! the! archetype! of! The! Great! Mother! was! rediscovered! and! used! by!
feminist! artists! and! movements! to! evoke! a! golden! age! in! which! woman! reigned!
supreme.33!
While! it! is! impossible! to! squeeze! the! history! of! feminist! movements! and! the!
multiple!relations!between!contemporary!art!and!female!emancipation!into!just!a!few!
paragraphs,!it!is!perhaps!enough!to!recall,!purely!by!way!of!illustration,!that!in!forwardN
thinking!Switzerland!women!were!denied!the!vote!until!1971.!If!the!overlapping!of!the!
personal! and! the! political! is! one! of! the! key! legacies! of! the! feminist! movement! of! the!
1970s,! it! will! be! hardly! surprising! that! analysis! of! the! domestic! space! is! one! of! the!
contexts! in! which! many! women! artists! developed! a! critique! of! the! institutions! of!
motherhood!and!the!family.!Many!of!the!works!on!view!present!the!home!as!a!place!of!
everyday!violence!and!injustice.!As!stated!in!the!Manifesto$di$Rivolta$Femminile$(1970),!
women! have! had! the! experience! of! seeing! what! they! do! destroyed! every! day.34! The!
division! of! labor! and! sexual! roles! in! the! spheres! of! the! home! and! the! family! were!
attacked! by! numerous! women! artists! of! the! period.! In! a! series! of! images! drawn! with!
feigned!infantile!crudity,!VALIE!EXPORT!presents!the!home!as!a!scene!of!family!clashes!
and! disasters,! where! mothers! and! children! take! revenge! on! one! another! with! brutal!
violence.! Martha! Rosler,! on! the! other! hand,! adopts! the! clinical! language! of! the! new!
social! sciences,! market! analysis,! and! opinion! polls! to! present! the! imprisonment! of!
housework.! Other! women! artists! seek! in! isolation! a! new! strength! regenerated! in! the!
intimacy!of!the!exclusive!relationship!between!mother!and!child,!thus!transforming!the!
home! into! a! protected! nest! and! refuge! of! love.! The! extraordinary! series! of! items!
constituting! Mary! Kelly’s! PostMPartum$Document$(1973–1979)! presents! the! symbiotic!
relations! between! mother! and! child! with! a! mixture! of! tenderness,! astonishment,!
empathy,! and! scientific! detachment.! In! the! set! of! photographs! on! exhibit,! Kelly!
measures!closeness!and!distance!to!remind!us!that!love!is!first!and!foremost!a!matter!of!
space.! In! much! the! same! way,! Joan! Jonas! develops! a! closeNup! exploration! of! her! body!
while!Carla!Accardi,!one!of!the!pioneers!of!Italian!abstract!art!and!of!the!Italian!feminist!
movement,!composes!an!intimate!and!private!genealogical!tree,!imagining!the!family!as!
a!space!of!matrilineal!relations.!
!
Family! hierarchies! and! balances! of! power! are! also! called! into! question! in! the!
works! of! Sherrie! Levine,! Lee! Lozano,! and! Elaine! Sturtevant,! who! all! oppose! the!
traditional! forms! of! production! and! reproduction! in! their! individual! ways.! Through!
copies! and! replicas! or! the! flat! refusal! to! create! anything! new,! these! artists! suggest!
unusual! models! of! property! and! new! forms! of! possession! that! elude! patriarchal!
authority.!What!they!present!is!a!history!of!art!with!no!fathers,!or!rather!one!in!which!
the!rights!of!men!and!fathers!are!constantly!challenged!and!usurped.!
In!the!1960s,!for!example,!Sturtevant!embarked!on!the!systematic!reproduction!
of! works! by! other! artists,! concentrating! in! particular! on! those! of! men! who! have! been!
critically! acclaimed! as! masters.! With! her! copies! and! replicas,! Sturtevant! drains! her!
male! colleagues’! work! of! all! power,! neutralizing! its! uniqueness,! inflating! its! style,! and!
depriving!it!of!any!exclusive!claim!to!genius.!The!critique!of!the!concept!of!originality!
and! the! rejection! of! any! glorification! of! the! author’s! subjectivity! are! also! central!
elements! in! the! case! of! Sherrie! Levine,! with! her! celebrated! reproductions! of!
masterpieces!by!male!artists,!including!Duchamp’s!legendary!urinal.!Levine!refuses!to!
recognize! the! authority! of! the! (usually! male)! author! by! asserting! her! right! to! rewrite!
the!history!of!art,!reversing!the!positions!of!masters!and!disciples,!originals!and!copies,!
so!as!to!suggest!new!possible!narratives!and!lines!of!descent.!
Lee!Lozano’s!“artNlife”!or!“infoNfiction”!social!experiments!constitute!a!still!more!
extreme! case.! In! the! late! 1960s! she! commenced! a! series! of! behavioral! works!
characterized! by! a! strict! regime! of! selfNdiscipline.! In! 1971,! Lozano! decided! to! boycott!
women! and! refused! to! speak! a! word! to! representatives! of! her! sex.! Leading! up! to! this!
act,! in! 1969,! she! began! a! strike! that! meant! ceasing! all! production! of! art! and!
disappearing! completely! from! the! art! scene! a! few! years! later.! In! this! refusal! to!
participate!in!the!rituals!of!art!and!the!race!for!success,!Lozano!assumed!the!role!of!a!
woman! excluded! from! active! participation! in! society,! playing! it! out! all! the! way! to! its!
most! tragic! consequences.! To! her,! the! refusal! to! produce! was! a! sacrifice,! an! act! of!
extreme! asceticism! that! highlighted! the! deprivation! to! which! millions! of! women! are!
unwillingly! subjected.35! Lozano’s! behavioral! works! have! survived! only! in! the! form! of!
texts:!laconic!descriptions!of!intentions!as!rough!as!slogans!scrawled!on!the!placards!of!
some!street!demonstration.!
Like! the! écriture$ féminine,! or! women’s! writing,! called! for! by! Hlène! Cixous,!
Lozano’s!texts!bind!body!and!language!indivisibly.36!A!similar!effort!can!be!detected!in!
artists!as!dissimilar!as!Barbara!Kruger,!Ketty!La!Rocca,!and!Suzanne!Santoro,!who!have,!
despite! their! many! differences,! used! the! combination! of! found! images,! texts,! and!
collage!to!undertake!semiotic!guerrilla!warfare!against!the!slogans!and!messages!of!the!
mass! media! and! to! deconstruct! the! images! of! woman! and! motherhood! they! have!
created.!
The!interweaving!of!text!and!image!that!distinguishes!the!works!of!these!artists!
can!be!read!as!another!example!of!écriture$féminine—a!new!mother!tongue!perhaps,!or!
what! Hélène! Cixous! would! call! a! langueMlait$ [milk! tongue]—which! eludes! the!
rationalistic,! normative! logic! of! unambiguous! meaning! to! explode! in! a! series! of!
polyphonic!and!polysemic!manifestations.!On!closer!examination,!many!of!these!artists!
!
appear! to! be! rebelling! against! an! essentialist! vision! that! once! again! reduces! woman!
solely!to!biology!and!her!writing!to!a!supposedly!sexualized!form.!Their!works!indeed!
vigorously! assert! that! any! definition! of! woman! and! the! body! is! historical,! ideological,!
and!partial,!and!susceptible!to!reinvention!and!transformation!for!this!very!reason.!
Many! of! the! artists! featured! here! also! agree! that! history! must! be! constantly!
rewritten! in! order! to! correct! imbalances! and! hierarchies! that! force! women! into!
marginal! or! subordinate! roles.! ! As! early! as! the! 1980s,! for! example,! the! works! of! very!
different!women!artists!like!Katharina!Fritsch,!Cindy!Sherman,!and!Rosemarie!Trockel!
appropriated! the! history! of! art,! mixing! styles! and! iconographic! references! to! the!
tradition! of! religious! painting! and! sculpture.! This! history! is! revisited! in! their! works!
through!a!process!of!appropriation!and!pastiche!that!sometimes!appears!to!parody!the!
vacuous!sentimentality!of!heroes!and!great!masters!of!the!past.!Sherman’s!photographs!
seem!in!particular!to!allude!to!a!conception!of!gender!as!a!fluid!
entity! and! identity! as! an! interplay! of! interchangeable! masks! and! roles! in! which! any!
rigid! distinction! between! male! and! female! is! dissolved.! The! presumed! dictatorship! of!
anatomy! is! definitively! replaced! with! a! schizophrenic! performance! of! the! self,!
sometimes!joyful!and!sometimes!tragic.!
This! fluidity! of! roles! is! to! be! found! in! the! work! of! many! women! artists! who!
emerged!in!the!1990s!parallel!to!thirdNwave!feminism,!which!imagined!and!discussed!
new! models! of! femininity! and! prefigured! the! disappearance! of! distinctions! between!
genders,! in! what! became! known! at! that! time! as! “postNgender.”37! These! were! also! the!
years! of! the! “Bad! Girls”! and! the! Riot! Grrrl! movement,! whose! visual! language! is! often!
characterized! by! abrasive! bluntness! and! proudly! flaunted! masculinity.38! The! violent!
paintings! of! Nicole! Eisenman,! the! bricolage! sculpture! of! Sarah! Lucas,! the! sentimental!
reportage!of!Catherine!Opie,!the!hysterical!bodies!of!Kiki!Smith,!and!the!silhouettes!of!
Kara! Walker! are! examples! of! the! aggressive! simplicity! and! the! combination! of! virility!
and! sensuality! that! distinguish! the! works! of! many! women! artists! of! the! early! 1990s.!
The! same! approach! can! be! seen! in! the! lyrical! documentary! photography! of! Rineke!
Dijkstra!and!the!bloated!portraiture!of!Marlene!Dumas.!Despite!the!bravado!exhibited!
by!many!of!these!women!artists,!motherhood!is!still!represented!in!a!number!of!their!
works—nearly! one! hundred! years! after! the! beginning! of! the! twentieth! century—as! a!
trap!and!a!prison!and!seldom!as!joy!and!liberation.!
The!1990s!also!marked!the!emergence!of!a!new!parascientific!imagery!in!which!
technology!and!biology!meld!yet!again!to!open!up!new!horizons!and!move!beyond!the!
old!distinctions!of!gender.!The!emergence!of!new!technologies!of!communication!that!
transform! subjects! into! avatars! and! electronic! alter! egos,! and! the! spread! of! genetic!
engineering,! aesthetic! surgery,! and! nanotechnology! heralded! a! new! posthuman!
condition!presented!more!or!less!explicitly!in!the!works!on!view!produced!at!the!turn!
of! the! last! century! by! artists! of! different! generations! and! styles,! such! as! Nathalie!
Djurberg,! Keith! Edmier,! Robert! Gober,! Jeff! Koons,! Pipilotti! Rist,! Thomas! Schütte,! and!
Gillian!Wearing.!At!the!two!opposite!ends!of!this!spectrum!we!find!the!icy!sensibility!of!
Koons,!whose!chromiumNplated!forms!expand!the!combination!of!visceral!and!artificial!
adumbrated!by!Duchamp!and!the!aseptic!dreams!of!Brancusi!on!a!cyclopean!scale,!and!
the! polymorphous! pansexuality! of! Pipilotti! Rist,! a! world! in! which! technology! and!
!
nature! merge! to! celebrate! the! creative! power! and! energy! of! a! Mother! Earth! that! is!
simultaneously! electronic! and! carnal,! mother! and! matrix.! Similar! conclusions! are! also!
drawn! by! the! younger! artists! Andra! Ursuta! and! Camille! Henrot,! who! respectively!
imagine! new! origin! myths! and! ancient! births! of! the! universe.! Among! the! most! recent!
works!on!exhibit!are!the!photographs!with!which!Nicholas!Nixon!has!been!composing!a!
collective!portrait!of!his!wife!and!her!sisters!for!forty!years!now.!This!family!album!can!
also! be! read! as! a! metaphor! of! a! history! of! art! that! develops! through! alliance! and!
sisterhood.! The! time! has! perhaps! come! to! replace! the! now! threadbare! and! exhausted!
history!of!art!seen!as!conflict!between!father!and!son,!between!Laius!and!Oedipus,!with!
a! transversal! narrative! grounded! on! elective! affinities! and! affective! ties,! sympathies!
established!at!a!distance,!between!equals.!A!history!of!art!in!which!it!is!possible!to!be!
mothers!and!sisters!at!the!same!time.39!
$
A$Child$is$Born$
$
What! emerges! from! the! works! presented! as! part! of! The$ Great$ Mother$ is! a! complex,!
manifold! image! of! the! mother! far! removed! from! wornNout! and! reassuring!
stereotypes—a! darker,! more! obscure,! and! almost! lunar! side! of! motherhood! that! a!
number! of! twentiethNcentury! artists! described! in! their! works.!As!in!the!extraordinary!
series!of!images!by!Lennart!Nilsson,!the!first!to!photograph!in$vivo$human!embryos!via!
endoscopy,!motherhood!as!seen!through!the!figurative!artwork!of!over!a!hundred!years!
is! both! transformed! into! a! spectacle! of! cosmic! vastness! and! immersed! in! a!
defamiliarizing! atmosphere! where! opposite! feelings—deep! affections! and! pitiless!
rejection—are!mingled.!!
Upon!looking!through!this!catalogue!and!plunging!into!this!psychohistory!of!the!
twentieth!century,!it!is!clear!that!the!representation!of!motherhood!is!deeply!linked!to!
power! and! to! the! subjection! of! women,! the! denial! of! individuality! in! the! name! of! the!
family,! and! the! ensuing! need! for! liberation! and! assertion! of! the! right! to! choose.! This!
exhibition!presents!an!image!of!the!mother!that!is!perhaps!less!reassuring!but!far!more!
complex! and! powerful,! a! figure! onto! which! Western! society! as! a! whole! has! projected!
individual! and! collective! desires,! anxieties,! and! aspirations! for! over! a! century.! At! this!
point!it!would!also!be!possible!to!slip!into!cheap!psychoanalysis!and!ask!whether!this!
succession!of!furious!mothers,!powerful!or!wounded,!is!not!to!be!read!as!a!projection!of!
who!knows!what!Oedipal!fantasies!on!the!part!of!the!curator,!yours!truly.!And!while!I!
hasten!in!typically!neurotic!fashion!to!assure!readers!that!The$Great$Mother$is!really!not!
about!me,!I!must!confess!that!I!am!writing!just!a!few!months!before!becoming!a!father!
for!the!first!time!and!that!the!exhibition!would!!unquestionably!have!been!different!had$
it!come!into!being!even!just!a!few!months!later.!Moreover,!I!must!also!acknowledge!that!
the!exhibition!would!simply!never!have!existed!but!for!the!tireless!collaboration!of!the!
“sisters”! of! the! Nicola! Trussardi! Foundation,! namely! Beatrice! Trussardi,! Barbara!
Roncari,!Roberta!Tenconi,!Lara!Facco,!Micola!Brambilla,!and!Giulia!Chiapparelli,!whose!
claims!to!the!maternity!and!paternity!of!this!exhibition!must!be!fully!recognized.!!
!
!
Notes$
$
1.!To!continue!the!game!of!metaphors,!we!could!say!that!the!exhibition—held!in!the!magnificent!rooms!of!
Palazzo! Reale,! in! many! of! which! the! historical! decorations,! furniture,! and! details! are! still! preserved—
features! a! design! that! draws! inspiration! from! the! doll’s! house,! to! borrow! the! title! of! the! famous! play! by!
Henrik! Ibsen! that! had! a! deep! impact! on! feminist! thought! in! the! late! nineteenth! and! early! twentieth!
centuries.! The! works! are! inserted! into! the! sometimes! domestic! and! sometimes! sumptuous! spaces! of!
Palazzo!Reale!as!in!a!diorama,!seeking!integration!or!dialogue!with!their!surroundings!rather!than!conflict.!
2.! For! more! on! the! artists! and! works! mentioned! in! this! introduction,! readers! are! referred! to! the!
monographic! texts! on! pp.! 322–377.! For! Oppenheim’s! work,! see! also! the! study! by! Pietro! Rigolo! in! this!
catalogue!and!his!La$Mamma.$Unamostra$di$Harald$Szeemann$mai$realizzata$(Milan:!Johan!&!Levi,!2014).!
3.!Simone!de!Beauvoir,!Le$deuxieme$sexe$(Paris:!Gallimard,!1949).!Translated!by!Roberto!Cantini!and!Mario!
Andreose!as!Il$secondo$sesso$(Milan:!il!Saggiatore,!2012),!p.!190.!
4.!Adrienne!Rich,!Of$Woman$Born$(1976)!(New!York:!Norton,!1986).!
5.! The! entire! first! section! of! The$Second$Sex$is! devoted,! with! splendid! pages,! to! the! relationship! between!
anatomy! and! destiny.! Equally! splendid! is! the! examination! of! Freud’s! ideas! and! his! claim! that! anatomy! is!
destiny.!
6.!Rich,!Of$Woman$Born,!p.!12.!
7.!Ibid.,!p.!73.!
8.!Erich!Neumann,!The$Great$Mother:$An$Analysis$of$the$Archetype$(New!York:!Pantheon!Books,!1955).!
9.!For!Olga!FröbeNKapteyn,!see!the!monographic!text!at!the!end!of!this!volume.!See!also!her!paper!on!the!
Great!Mother!published!in!the!proceedings!of!the!annual!Eranos!conferences:!Olga!FröbeNKapteyn,!EranosM
Jahrbuch$1938:$vorträge(über(Gestalt(und(Kult(der(“Grossen(Mutter”(gehalten(auf(der(Tagungin$Ascona$8.M15.$
August$1938$(Zurich:!RheinNVerlag,!1939).!The!1938!Eranos!conference!was!devoted!entirely!to!the!subject!
of! the! Great! Mother! and! was! the! site! of! Jung’s! presentation! of! his! paper! Die$psychologischen$Aspekte$des$
Mutterarchetypus.!For!more!on!Eranos!and!a!deeper!understanding!of!FröbeNKapteyn,!see!Carl$Gustav$Jung$
a$ Eranos:$ 1933M1952,! edited! by! Gian! Piero! Quaglino,! Augusto! Romano,! and! Riccardo! Bernardini! (Turin:!
Antigone,! 2007);! and! Riccardo! Bernardini,! Jung$ a$ Eranos:$ il$ progetto$ della$ psicologia$ complessa$ (Milan:!
Franco!Angeli,!2011).!
10.! The! fact! that! Olga! FröbeNKapteyn! ended! up! giving! a! copy! of! her! archive! to! the! Warburg! Institute!
provides!important!evidence!that!the!art!historian!Aby!Warburg!was!not!the!only!figure!to!believe!in!the!
migration!of!forms!and!in!what!he!called!“psychohistory,”!a!term!that!Erich!Neumann!also!used!to!describe!
his!own!research.!It!is!indeed!tempting!to!describe!this!exhibition!as!a!psychohistory!of!the!representation!
of! motherhood.! For! Warburg! and! the! concept! of! psychohistory,! see! Georges! DidiNHuberman,! L’image$
survivante.$Histoire$de$l’art$et$temps$des$fantômes$selon$Aby$Warburg$(Paris:!Éditions!de!Minuit,!2002).!For!
the!images!gathered!together!by!Olga!FröbeNKapteyn!and!the!entire!archive,!see!The$Archive$for$Research$in$
Archetypal$Symbolism:$An$Encyclopedia$of$Archetypal$Symbolism$(Boston:!Shambhala,!1996).!
11.!The!exhibition!presented!only!photographs!of!works!in!a!sort!of!huge!visual!atlas.!After!Ascona,!it!was!
staged!the!same!year!in!New!York!at!the!Analytical!Psychology!Club.!A!partial!list!of!the!images!shown!is!
provided! in! Hildegard! Nagel,! Papers$ of$ the$ Analytical$ Psychology$ Club$ of$ New$ York$ City:$ The$ Eranos$
Conference$1938$(held!at!the!Warburg!Institute!and!the!Kristine!Mann!Library,!Jung!Center,!New!York).!
12.!The!best!known!of!the!many!works!of!history!and!anthropology!putting!forward!theories!on!primitive!
matriarchal! cultures! include! the! monumental! Das$Mütterrecht$(1861)! by! Johann! Jakob! Bachofen;! Robert!
Briffault’s! equally! verbose! The$ Mothers$ (1927);! Mütter$ und$ Amazone$ (1932)! by! Helen! Diner,! the!
pseudonym! of! Bertha! EcksteinNDiener,! published! in! English! as! Mothers$and$Amazons:$The$First$Feminine$
History$ of$ Culture$ (New! York:! Anchor! Books,! 1965);! and! The$ First$ Sex$ (1971)! by! Elizabeth! Gould! Davis.!
Some!of!these!have!been!the!subject!of!thorough!discussion!and!criticism,!not!least!by!Beauvoir!and!Rich.!
Robert! Graves’s! The$White$Goddess$(1948)! is! often! cited! as! a! point! of! reference! for! studies! of! mythology!
and! archaeology.! Works! comparatively! well! known! in! the! 1970s! include! Marija! Gimbutas,! The$Gods$and$
Goddesses$of$Old$Europe,$7000$to$3500$BC:$Myths,$Legends$and$Cult$Images$(London:! Thames! and! Hudson,!
1974);! and! Merlin! Stone,! When$God$Was$a$Woman$(London! and! New! York:! Harcourt,! 1976).! For! a! useful!
historical! analysis,! see! A$ History$ of$ Women,$ edited! by! Georges! Duby! and! Michel! Perrot! (Cambridge,!
Massachusetts:! Harvard! University! Press,! 1992),! especially! the! first! volume! edited! by! Pauline! Schmitt!
Pantel.!See!also!Cynthia!Eller,!The$Myth$of$Matriarchal$Prehistory$(Boston:!Beacon!Press,!2000).!
!
13.!Rich,!Of$Woman$Born,!pp.!93–99.!
14.!Simone!de!Beauvoir!cited!in!Rich,!Of$Woman$Born,!p.!68.!
15.!Kafka’s!story!has!often!been!interpreted!as!a!metaphor!of!totalitarian!regimes!and,!more!generally,!as!a!
description!of!how!the!authority!of!the!state!is!imprinted!on!the!body!of!the!individual.!The!philosopher!
Judith!Butler!has!analyzed!it!precisely!in!relation!to!the!problem!of!sexuality!and!the!ways!in!which!sexual!
roles! and! genders! are! produced! and! endorsed! by! the! authority!of!tradition!and!the!state.!Her!discussion!
incorporates!ideas!borrowed!from!Michel!Foucault!and!Jacques!Derrida.!See!Judith!Butler,!Gender$Trouble:$
Feminism$and$the$Subversion$of$Identity$(New!York:!Routledge,!1990).!
16.! Rich,! Of$ Woman$ Born,! p.! 156.! This! is! a! quotation! of! a! poster! designed! by! Marcia! Salo! Rizzi! and!
published!by!Times!Change!Press,!New!York,!1973.!
17.! Carla! Lonzi,! “Sputiamo! su! Hegel”! (1970),! in! Carla! Lonzi,! Sputiamo$ su$ Hegel.$ La$ donna$ clitoridea$ e$ la$
donna$vaginale$e$altri$scritti$(Milan:!Scritti!di!Rivolta!Femminile,!1974),!p.!52.!
18.!“They!don’t!realize!we’re!bringing!them!the!plague.”!Freud!is!reported!to!have!said!this!to!Jung!on!their!
arrival!in!New!York!harbor.!The!source!is!Lacan:!“I!have!it!from!Jung’s!own!mouth.”!See!Jacques!Lacan,!“The!
Freudian!Thing!or!the!Meaning!of!the!Return!to!Freud!in!Psychoanalysis,”!in!Écrits:$A$Selection$(New!York:!
Norton,!1977),!p.!116.!The!literature!on!Freud!is!enormous.!In!addition!to!the!complete!works,!readers!are!
referred!to!the!major!biographies!by!Ernest!Jones,! The$Life$and$Work$of$Sigmund$Freud$(New!York:!Basic!
Books,!1953),!and!Peter!Gay,!Freud:$A$Life$for$Our$Time$(New!York:!Norton,!1988).!
19.!Examples!include!the!writings!of!Luce!Irigaray,!especially!Speculum.$De$l’autre$femme$(Paris:!Éditions!
de!Minuit,!1974)!and!Ce$sexe$qui$n’en$est$pas$un$(Paris:!Éditions!de!Minuit,!1977).!See!also!Juliet!Mitchell’s!
useful!study!Psychoanalysis$and$Feminism,!1974!(New!York:!Basic!Books,!2000),!and!the!still!fundamental!
L’AntiMOedipe$of!Gilles!Deleuze!and!Félix!Guattari!(Paris:!Éditions!de!Minuit,!1977).!
20.! For! Freud’s! collection! of! art! and! antiques,! see! Sigmund$ Freud$ and$ Art,! edited! by! Lynn! Gamwell! and!
Richard!Wells!(New!York!and!London:!State!University!of!New!York!and!the!Freud!Museum!London,!1989).!
Among! the! various! studies! it! contains,! Donald! Kuspit! examines! the! analogy! drawn! between! archaeology!
and!psychoanalysis!by!Freud,!and!Lynn!Gamwell!discusses!Freud’s!visit!to!the!Louvre!(the!quotation!is!on!
p.! 24).! See! also! the! photographs! taken! by! Edmund! Engelman! in! 1938,! which! appeared! in! Bergasse$ 19.$
Sigmund$Freud’s$Home$and$Offices,$Vienna$1938$(New!York:!Basic!Books,!1976).!
21.! “We! know! less! about! the! sexual! life! of! little! girls! than! of! boys.! But! we! need! not! feel! ashamed! of! this!
distinction;! after! all,! the! sexual! life! of! adult! women!is!a!‘dark!continent’!for!psychology.”!Sigmund!Freud,!
The$Question$of$Lay$Analysis$(1926).!
22.!For!Marcel!Duchamp!and!his!“vision”!of!the!enfant$phare,!see!Calvin!Tomkins,!Duchamp:$A$Biography$
(New!York:!Henry!Holt,!1996),!pp.!112–113.!23.!See!Claude!Quiguer,!Femmes$et$Machines$de$1900$(Paris:!
Klincksieck,!1979).!The!fundamental!investigation!of!these!themes!undertaken!by!Harald!Szeemann!with!
his!legendary!exhibition!The$Bachelor$Machines$also!deserves!more!than!a!footnote.!(The!catalogue,!edited!
by!Jean!Clair!and!published!in!Venice!by!Alfieri!in!1975,!is!still!one!of!the!most!crucial!contributions!on!the!
subject! of! art,! technology,! and! sexuality.)! The$ Great$ Mother$ is! indebted! to! The$ Bachelor$ Machines$ and! to!
Szeemann’s! unrealized! exhibition! project! La$ Mamma$ for! various! ideas! and! insights.! See! Pietro! Rigolo’s!
study!in!this!catalogue!for!an!inNdepth!analysis.!We!express!our!gratitude!to!the!late!Harald!Szeemann!once!
again!and!thank!Ingeborg!Lüscher!and!Una!and!Jerôme!Szeemann!for!their!cooperation!in!connection!with!
the! loan! of! the! reconstruction! of! Kafka’s! torture! machine,! originally! commissioned! by! Szeemann! and!
previously! exhibited! by! the! present! writer! at! the! New! Museum! in! Ghosts$in$the$Machine$(2011),! another!
exhibition!on!themes!examined!with!great!insight!by!Szeemann!in!The$Bachelor$Machines.!
24.!The!literature!on!Marinetti!and!Futurism!is!vast.!Readers!are!referred!to!the!study!by!Lucia!Re!in!this!
catalogue.!
25.! For! women! Futurists,! in! addition! to! the! abovementioned! study! by! Lucia! Re,! see! Mirella! Bentivoglio,!
“Futuriste!italiane!tra!linguaggio!e!immagine,”!in!L’arte$delle$donne$nell’Italia$del$Novecento,!edited!by!Laura!
Iamurri! and! Sabina! Spinazzé! (Rome:! Meltemi,! 2001);! Mirella! Bentivoglio! and! Franca! Zoccoli,! Le$futuriste$
italiane$ nelle$ arti$ visive$ (Rome:! De! Luca! Editori! d’Arte,! 2008);! Giancarlo! Carpi,! Futuriste$ (Rome:!
Castelvecchi,! 2013);! and! Claudia! Salaris,! Le$ futuriste.$ Donne$ e$ letteratura$ d’avanguardia$ in$ Italia$ (1909–
1944)$(Milan:!Edizioni!delle!donne,!1982).!
26.!The!literature!on!Duchamp!and!his!erotic!and!sexual!allegories!is!enormous.!Readers!are!referred!to!the!
interview!with!Calvin!Tomkins!in!this!catalogue!and!his!book!Duchamp:$A$Biography.!Francis!Naumann’s!
contributions!on!Dada!are!also!of!crucial!importance,!especially!Making$Mischief:$Dada$Invades$New$York,!
!
edited!by!Francis!Naumann!(New!York:!Whitney!Museum,!1996),!a!very!rich!collection!of!important!essays,!
and! Francis! Naumann,! New$ York$ Dada$ 1915–23$ (New! York:! Abrams,! 1994).! Also! fundamental! are! the!
recent!catalogues!of!exhibitions!on!Dada!held!at!the!Centre!Pompidou!(2005),!the!National!Gallery!of!Art!in!
Washington,!DC,!and!the!Museum!of!Modern!Art!in!New!York!(2006).!Amelia!Jones,!Postmodernism$and$the$
EnMgendering$of$Marcel$Duchamp$(Cambridge:!Cambridge!University!Press,!1994)!provides!useful!insight!in!
this!connection.!
27.!For!Dada!and!the!crucial!contribution!of!many!women!artists!as!well!as!a!more!general!historical!and!
sociological! reading! of! the! movement! in! Europe! and! America,! readers! are! referred! to! two! key! works:!
Women$ in$ Dada,! edited! by! Naomi! SawelsonNGorse! (Cambridge,! Massachusetts! and! London:! MIT! Press,!
1998),! and! Ruth! Hemus,! Dada’s$ Women$ (New! Haven,! Connecticut,! and! London:! Yale! University! Press,!
2009).! See! also! The$ Modern$ Woman$ Revisited,! edited! by! Whitney! Chadwick! and! Tirza! True! Latimer!
(Rutgers,!New!Jersey:!Rutgers!University!Press,!2003).!
28.! Whitney! Chadwick,! whose! work! played! a! key! part! in! the! conception! of! this! exhibition! and! who! has!
generously!contributed!an!important!essay!to!which!readers!are!referred,!has!completely!transformed!the!
study! of! Surrealism! with! her! fundamental! Women$ Artists$ and$ the$ Surrealist$ Movement$ (London:! Thames!
and!Hudson,!1985).!See!also!Mirror$Images,!edited!by!Whitney!Chadwick!(Cambridge,!Massachusetts:!MIT!
Press,!1998).!Among!the!most!important!works!on!Surrealism,!sexuality,!and!gender!politics,!see!La$Femme$
Surréaliste,! edited! by! Roger! Borderie! (special! issue! of! the! magazine! Obliques);! Mary! Ann! Caws,! The$
Surrealist$ Look$ (Cambridge,! Massachusetts:! MIT! Press,! 1997);! Katharine! Conley,! Automatic$ Woman$
(Lincoln:!University!of!Nebraska!Press,!1996);!Xaviere!Gauthier,!Surréalisme$et$sexualité$(Paris:!Gallimard,!
1971);! L’Amour$ Fou:$ Photography$ and$ Surrealism,! edited! by! Rosalind! Krauss! and! Jane! Livingston! (New!
York:! Abbeville! Press,! 1985);! and! Alyce! Mahon,! Surrealism$and$the$Politics$of$Eros$(London:! Thames! and!
Hudson,! 2005).! For! Surrealism! and! Dada,! see! also! the! writings! of! Arturo! Schwarz,! whose! recent! Il$
Surrealismo.$Ieri$e$oggi$(Milan:!Skira,!2014)!is!a!very!rich!source!of!information.!
29.!The!law!prohibiting!any!form!of!contraception!and!abortion!was!published!in!the!Journal$officiel$de$la$
République$
française$
in!
August!
1920,!
p.!
10934.!
30.!Among!other!works,!see!Hal!Foster,!Compulsive$Beauty$(Cambridge,!Massachusetts:!MIT!Press,!1993).!
31.! Louise! Bourgeois,! Destruction$ of$ the$ Father$ /$ Reconstruction$ of$ the$ Father:$ Writings$ and$ Interviews,$
1923–1997$(Cambridge,!Massachusetts:!MIT!Press,!1998).!
32.! Once! again,! the! literature! is! vast.! Readers! are! referred! to! these! key! works:! Women$ Artists$ at$ the$
Millennium,! edited! by! Carol! Armstrong! and! Catherine! De! Zegher! (Cambridge,! Massachusetts:! MIT! Press,!
2006);! The$ Power$ of$ Feminist$ Art,! edited! by! Norma! Broude! and! Mary! D.! Garrard! (New! York:! Abrams,!
1994);! Il$ gesto$ femminista,! edited! by! Ilaria! Bussoni! and! Raffaella! Perna! (Rome:! DeriveApprodi,! 2014);!
Connie! Butler,! Wack!$ Art$ and$ the$ Feminist$ Revolution$ (Cambridge,! Massachusetts:! MIT! Press,! 2007);!
Whitney! Chadwick,! Women,$ Art,$ and$ Society$ (London:! Thames! and! Hudson,! 1990);! Emanuela! De! Cecco,!
Contemporanee$ (Milan:! Postmedia,! 2005);! Inside$ the$ Visible,! edited! by! Catherine! De! Zegher! (Cambridge,!
Massachusetts:!MIT!Press,!1996);!After$The$Revolution:$Women$Who$Transformed$Contemporary$Art,!edited!
by! Eleanor! Heartney,! Helaine! Posner,! Nancy! Princenthal,! and! Sue! Scott! (Munich:! Prestel,! 2007);! Lucy!
Lippard,!From$the$Center$(New!York:!Dutton,!1976);!Raffaella!Perna,!Arte,$fotografia$e$femminismo$in$Italia$
(Milan:! Postmedia,! 2013);! Griselda! Pollock,! Vision$ and$ Difference$ (New! York:! Routledge,! 1988);! Griselda!
Pollock,!Encounters$in$the$Virtual$Feminist$Museum$(New!York:!Routledge,!2007);!Art$and$Feminism,!edited!
by! Helena! Reckitt! and! Peggy! Phelan! (London:! Phaidon,! 2001);! and! Maria! Antonietta! Trasforini,! Donne$
d’arte$(Rome:!Meltemi,!2006).!
33.!With!respect!to!this!connection,!see!the!special!issue!of!the!feminist!journal!Heresies$on!the!subject!of!
the!Great!Mother:!Heresies:$A$Feminist$Publication$on$Art$and$Politics,!The$Great$Goddess$(New!York,!1978),!
with! writings,! works,! and! images! by! figures! like! Louise! Bourgeois,! Mary! Beth! Edelson,! Joan! Jonas,! Lucy!
Lippard,!Carolee!Schneeman,!Merlin!Stone,!Mierle!Laderman!Ukeles,!and!Hannah!Wilke.!
34.!Lonzi,!Sputiamo$su$Hegel,!p.!16.!
35.! For! Lee! Lozano! and! her! performances,! including! the! one! that! involved! her! dropping! out! of! the! art!
scene,!see!Sarah!LehrerNGraiwer,!Dropout$Piece(London:!Afterall!Books,!2014).!
36.!Le$rire$de$la$Méduse$(1975),!the!celebrated!work!by!Hélene!Cixous!on!écriture$féminine,!was!translated!
into!English!as!“The!Laugh!of!the!Medusa,”!in!Signs,!vol.!1,!no.!4!(1976),!pp.!875–893.!See!also!The$Hélene$
Cixous$Reader$(New!York:!Routledge,!2005).!
!
37.!For!the!rejection!of!a!binary!conception!of!gender,!see!Butler,!Gender$Trouble;!Judith!Butler,!Bodies$that$
Matter$(New!York:!Routledge,!1993);!and!Donna!Haraway,!Simians,$Cyborgs$and$Women:$The$Reinvention$of$
Nature$(New! York:! Routledge,! 1991).! Another! useful! work! is! Art$and$Queer$Culture,! edited! by! Catherine!
Lord!and!Richard!Meyer!(London:!Phaidon,!2013).!
38.!Bad$Girls$was!the!title!of!three!exhibitions!held!in!New!York,!Los!Angeles,!and!London!in!1993!and!1994!
that! captured! the! emergence! of! a! group! of! new! women! artists! involved! in! the! exploration! of! several!
common!themes,!including!the!representation!of!the!body,!often!in!violent,!grotesque,!and!extreme!terms,!
and! a! new! aggressiveness! that! many! critics! have! connected! with! a! neoNfeminist! stance.! See! Bad$ Girls,!
edited! by! Marcia! Tucker! (New! York:! New! Museum,! 1994);! and! Bad$ Girls,! edited! by! Kate! Bush,! Emma!
Dexter,! and! Nicola! White! (London:! Institute! of! Contemporary! Art,! 1993).! For! the! Riot! Grrrl! musical! and!
cultural! movement,! see! The$ Riot$ Grrrl$ Collection,! edited! by! Lisa! Darms! (New! York:! The! Feminist! Press,!
2013).!
39.! See! Helen! Molesworth,! “How! to! Install! Art! as! a! Feminist,”! in! Modern$Women$(New! York:! Museum! of!
Modern!Art,!2010),!pp.!498–513.!
!
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Invited artists
1. Magdalena Abakanowicz
1930, Falentyn, Poland. Lives in Warsaw, Poland
2. Carla Accardi
1924, Trapani, Italy – 2014, Rome, Italy
3. Pawel Althamer
1967, Warsaw, Poland. Lives in Warsaw, Poland
4. Ida Applebroog
1929, New York, United States. Lives in New York, United States
5. Diane Arbus
1923, New York, United States – 1971, New York, United States
6. Association of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
(Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, 1977– present)
7. Roland Barthes
1915, Cherbourg, France – 1980, Paris, France
8. Thomas Bayrle
1937, Berlin, Germany. Lives in Frankfurt, Germany
9. Hans Bellmer
1902, Katowice, Poland – 1975, Paris, France
10. Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti)
1897, Rome, Italy – 1977, Venice, Italy
11. Lynda Benglis
1941, Lake Charles, United States. Lives in New York, United States
12. Birth Control
13. Umberto Boccioni
1882, Reggio Calabria, Italy – 1916, Verona, Italy
14. Oscar Bony
1941, Posadas, Argentina – 2002, Buenos Aires, Argentina
15. Louise Bourgeois
1911, Paris, France – 2010, New York, United States
16. Constantin Brancusi
1876, Peştişani, Romania – 1957, Paris, France
17. André Breton
1896, Tinchebray, France – 1966, Paris, France
18. Louise Joy Brown
1978, Oldham, United Kingdom
19. Claude Cahun
1894, Nantes, France – 1954, Jersey, United Kingdom
20. Leonora Carrington
1917, Clayton-le-Woods, United Kingdom – 2011, Mexico City, Mexico
21. Maurizio Cattelan
1960, Padua, Italy. Lives in Milan, Italy, and New York, United States
22. Giannina Censi
1913, Milan, Italy – 1995, Voghera, Italy
23. Judy Chicago
1939, Chicago, United States. Lives in Belen, United States
24. La ciociara
25. Larry Clark
1943, Tulsa, United States. Lives in New York, United States
26. Salvador Dalí
1904, Figueres, Spain – 1989, Figueres, Spain
27. Gino De Dominicis
1947, Ancona, Italy – 1998, Rome, Italy
28. Niki de Saint Phalle
1930, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France – 2002, San Diego, United States
29. Valentine de Saint-Point (Anne Jeanne Valentine Marianne Desglans de Cessiat-Vercell)
1875, Lyon, France – 1953, Cairo, Egypt
30. Rineke Dijkstra
1959, Sittard, Netherlands. Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands
31. Nathalie Djurberg
1978, Lysekil, Sweden. Lives in Berlin, Germany
32. Marcel Duchamp
1887, Blainville-Crevon, France – 1968, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
33. Suzanne Duchamp
1889, Blainville-Crevon, France – 1963, Paris, France
34. Marlene Dumas
1953, Cape Town, South Africa. Lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands
35. Keith Edmier
1967, Chicago, United States. Lives in New York, United States
36. Nicole Eisenman
1965, Verdun, France. Lives in New York, United States
37. Maria “Nusch” Éluard
1906, Mulhouse, France – 1946, Paris, France
38. Max Ernst
1891, Brühl, Germany – 1976, Paris, France
39. Fascism
40. Feminism in Italy
41. Leonor Fini
1907, Buenos Aires, Argentina – 1996, Paris, France
42. Lucio Fontana
1899, Rosario di Santa Fé, Argentina – 1968, Varese, Italy
43. Sigmund Freud
1856, Freiberg, Moravia – 1939, London, United Kingdom
44. Katharina Fritsch
1956, Essen, Germany. Lives in Düsseldorf, Germany
45. Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn
1881, London, United Kingdom – 1962, Ascona, Switzerland
46. Robert Gober
1954, Wallingford, United States. Lives in New York, United States
47. Alice Guy-Blaché
1873, Paris, France – 1968, Mahwah, United States
48. David Hammons
1943, Springfield, United States. Lives in New York, United States
49. Rachel Harrison
1966, New York, United States. Lives in New York, United States
50. Emmy Hennings (Emma Maria Cordsen)
1885, Flensburg, Germany – 1948, Sorengo, Switzerland
51. Camille Henrot
1978, Paris, France. Lives in Paris, France
52. Eva Hesse
1936, Hamburg, Germany – 1970, New York, United States
53. Hannah Höch (Johanne Höch)
1889, Gotha, Germany – 1978, Berlin, Germany
54. Valentine Hugo
1887, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France – 1968, Paris, France
55. Dorothy Iannone
1933, Boston, United States. Lives in Berlin, Germany
56. Joan Jonas (Joan Amerman Edwards)
1936, New York, United States. Lives in New York, United States
57. Birgit Jürgenssen
1949, Vienna, Austria – 2003, Vienna, Austria
58. Franz Kafka / Reconstruction of the torture machine from “In the Penal Colony”
1883, Prague, Bohemia – 1924, Kierling, Austria
59. Frida Kahlo
1907, Mexico City, Mexico – 1954, Mexico City, Mexico
60. Gertrude Käsebier
1852, Des Moines, United States – 1934, New York, United States
61. Mary Kelly
1941, Fort Dodge, United States. Lives in New York, United States
62. Ragnar Kjartansson
1976, Reykjavík, Iceland. Lives in Reykjavík, Iceland
63. Konrad Klapheck
1935, Düsseldorf, Germany. Lives in Düsseldorf, Germany
64. Käthe Kollwitz
1867, Königsberg, Prussia – 1945, Moritzburg, Germany
65. Jeff Koons
1955, York, United States. Lives in New York, United States
66. Barbara Kruger
1945, Newark, New Jersey. Lives in Los Angeles and New York, United States
67. Alfred Kubin
1877, Leitmeritz, Bohemia – 1959, Zwickledt, Austria
68. Emma Kunz
1892, Brittnau, Switzerland – 1963, Waldstatt, Switzerland
69. Yayoi Kusama
1929, Matsumoto, Japan. Lives in Tokyo, Japan
70. Ketty La Rocca (Gaetana La Rocca)
1938, La Spezia, Italy – 1976, Florence, Italy
71. Dorothea Lange
1895, Hoboken, United States – 1965, San Francisco, United States
72. Maria Lassnig
1919, Kappel am Krappfeld, Austria – 2014, Vienna, Austria
73. Sherrie Levine
1947, Hazelton, United States. Lives in New York, United States
74. Mina Loy (Mina Gertrude Löwry)
1882, London, United Kingdom – 1966, Aspen, United States
75. Lee Lozano (Leonore Knaster)
1930, Newark, United States – 1999, Dallas, United States
76. Sarah Lucas
1962, London, United Kingdom. Lives in London, United Kingdom
77. Dora Maar
1907, Tours, France – 1997, Paris, France
78. Anna Maria Maiolino
1942, Scalea, Italy. Lives in São Paulo, Brazil
79. Mamma Roma
80. Alina Marazzi Hoepli
1964, Milan, Italy. Lives in Milan, Italy
81. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
1876, Alexandria, Egypt – 1944, Bellagio, Italy
82. Medea
83. Ana Mendieta
1948, Havana, Cuba – 1985, New York, United States
84. Marisa Merz
1931, Turin, Italy. Lives in Turin, Italy
85. Annette Messager
1943, Berck-sur-Mer, France. Lives in Paris, France
86. Lee Miller (Elizabeth Miller)
1907, Poughkeepsie, United States – 1977, Chiddingly, United Kingdom
87. Marisa Mori
1900, Florence, Italy – 1985, Florence, Italy
88. Matt Mullican
1951, Santa Monica, United States. Lives in New York, United States, and Berlin, Germany
89. Edvard Munch
1863, Ådalsbruk, Norway – 1944, Oslo, Norway
90. Alice Neel
1900, Merion Square, United States – 1984, New York, United States
91. Lennart Nilsson
1922, Strängnäs, Sweden. Lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
92. Nicholas Nixon
1947, Detroit, United States. Lives in Brookline, United States
93. Violette Nozières
1915, Neuvy-sur-Loire, France – 1966, Le Petit-Quevilly, France
94. Lorraine O’Grady
1934, Boston, United States. Lives in New York, United States
95. Roman Ondák
1966, Žilina, Slovakia. Lives in Bratislava, Slovakia
96. Yoko Ono
1933, Tokyo, Japan. Lives in New York, United States
97. Catherine Opie
1961, Sandusky, United States. Lives in Los Angeles, United States
98. Meret Oppenheim
1913, Berlin, Germany – 1985, Basel, Switzerland
99. Valentine Penrose
1898, Mont-de-Marsan, France – 1978, Chiddingly, United Kingdom
100. Francis Picabia
1879, Paris, France – 1953, Paris, France
101.
The Pill
102.
Psycho
103. Carol Rama (Olga Carolina Rama)
1918, Turin, Italy. Lives in Turin, Italy
104. Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)
1890, Philadelphia, United States – 1976, Paris, France
105. Regina
1894, Mede, Italy –1974, Milan, Italy
106. La Révolution Surréaliste
1924 – 1929
107. Pipilotti Rist (Elizabeth Charlotte Rist)
1962, Grabs, Switzerland. Lives in Zurich, Switzerland and Somerset, United Kingdom
108. Enif Robert (Enif Angelini Robert)
1889, Prato, Italy – 1974, Bologna, Italy
109. Rosa Rosà (Edith von Haynau)
1884, Vienna, Austria – 1978, Rome, Italy
110. Martha Rosler
1943, New York, United States. Lives in New York, United States
111. Suzanne Santoro
1946, New York, United States. Lives in Viterbo, Italy
112. Carolee Schneemann
1939, Fox Chase, United States. Lives in New York, United States
113. Jean-Frédéric Schnyder
1945, Basel, Switzerland
114. Thomas Schütte
1954, Oldenburg, Germany. Lives in Düsseldorf, Germany
115. Cindy Sherman
1954, Glen Ridge, United States. Lives in New York, United States
116. Kiki Smith
1954, Nuremberg, Germany. Lives in New York, United States
117. Nancy Spero
1926, Cleveland, United States – 2009, New York, United States
118. Sturtevant (Elaine Sturtevant)
1924, Lakewood, United States – 2014, Paris, France
119.
Suffragettes
120. Alina Szapocznikow
1926, Kalisz, Poland – 1973, Praz-Coutant, France
121. Sophie Taeuber–Arp
1889, Davos, Switzerland – 1943, Zurich, Switzerland
122. Dorothea Tanning
1910, Galesburg, United States – 2012, New York, United States
123.
Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio
124. Toyen (Marie Čerminová)
1902, Prague, Bohemia – 1980, Paris, France
125. Rosemarie Trockel
1952, Schwerte, Germany. Lives in Cologne, Germany
126. Andra Ursuta
1979, Salonta, Romania. Lives in New York, United States
127. VALIE EXPORT (Waltraud Lehner Höllinger)
1940, Linz, Austria. Lives in Vienna, Austria
128. Remedios Varo
1908, Anglés, Spain – 1963, Mexico City, Mexico
129. Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (Elsa Hildegard Plötz)
1874, Swinemünde, Germany – 1927, Paris, France
130. Kara Walker
1969, Stockton, United States. Lives in New York, United States
131. Nari Ward
1963, St. Andrews, Jamaica. Lives in New York, United States
132. Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola)
1928, Pittsburgh, United States – 1987, New York, United States
133. Gillian Wearing
1963, Birmingham, United Kingdom. Lives in London, United Kingdom
134. Mary Wigman
1886, Hanover, Germany – 1973, Berlin, Germany
135. Hannah Wilke
1940, New York, United States – 1993, Houston, United States
136. Cathy Wilkes
1966, Belfast, United Kingdom. Lives in Glasgow, United Kingdom
137. Virginia Woolf
1882, London, United Kingdom – 1941, Rodmell, United Kingdom
138. Růžena Zátková
1885, Prague, Bohemia – 1923, Leysin, Switzerland
139. Unica Zürn
1916, Berlin, Germany – 1970, Paris, France
Exhibition Checklist
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Abakan Red I, 1970-1973
Sisal weaving on metal support, 300 x 300 x 100 cm
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste / Museum für Gestaltung Zürich / Kunstgewerbesammlung
Carla Accardi
Origine [Origin], 1976/2007
Sicofoil, 21 black-and-white photographs, wood strips, dimensions variable
Collection Antonella Sanfilippo, Rome
Pawel Althamer
Self-portrait, 2006
Ceramic, textiles, wood, 111.5 x 24 x 24 cm
Sammlung Goetz, Munich
Ida Applebroog
Monalisa, 2009
Gampi, mylar, ink, pigment, oil, watercolor and wood, 279.4 x 365.8 x 372.1 cm
Courtesy Ida Applebroog and Hauser & Wirth
Diane Arbus
Self-portrait pregnant, 1945
Gelatin silver print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm
Association of the Mothers of Plaza Mayo
Pañuelos [Handkerchiefs] used as foulards by mothers of Plaza Mayo, Buenos Aires
Courtesy Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo
Roland Barthes
La demande d’amour [The demand for love], Bayonne, Marrac, c. 1923
Roland Barthes with his mother.
Photograph published in Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1975). Courtesy
Fonds Roland Barthes / BnF, Paris
Thomas Bayrle
Verdun-Kreuzmadonna [Verdun – Madonna of the Cross], 1988
Photocopy collage on wood, 198 x 146 x 2 cm
Courtesy Thomas Bayrle and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Hans Bellmer
Untitled (Unica Bound), no. 29, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
Untitled (Unica Bound), no. 30, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
Untitled (Unica Bound), no. 31, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
Untitled (Unica Bound), no. 32, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
Untitled (Unica Bound), no. 33, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
Untitled (Unica bound), no. 34, 1958
Gelatin silver print, 8.5 x 13.5 cm
All works Greenwich Fine Arts
Benedetta
Spicologia di 1 uomo [Spychology of a man], 1918
Ink on paper, 16 x 16 cm
Velocità di un motoscafo [Speed of a motorboat], 1922
Oil on canvas, 70 x 110 cm
Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale
15 plates for Le forze umane. Romanzo astratto con sintesi grafiche [The human forces. Abstract novel
with graphic syntheses] (Foligno: Campitelli, 1924):
Sforzo differenziatore [Differentiating effort], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Diversità raggiunte [Reached diversities], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Ironia [Irony], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Irradiazione di un nucleo in sviluppo (Primavera) [Irradiation of a developing core (Spring)], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Armonia di forze dissimili [Harmony of dissimilar forces], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Forze senza nucleo (Autunno) [Coreless forces (Autumn)], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Totale raggiunto [Achieved total], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Fede [Faith], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Forze femminili—Spirale di dolcezza + serpe di fascino [Feminine forces—Spiral of sweetness + charm
snake], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Forze maschili—Armi e piume [Masculine forces—Weapons and plumes], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Contatto di due nuclei potenti (femminile e maschile) [Contact of two powerful cores (female and male)],
1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Fusione di nuclei = amore [Fusion of cores = love], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Ribellione dell’Io [Rebellion of the self], 1924
India ink on paper, 21 x 29 cm
Gioia [Joy], 1924
India ink on cardboard, 34 x 50 cm
Arte [Art], 1924
Tempera on cardboard, 34 x 50 cm
All works Private collection, Milan unless otherwise stated
Lynda Benglis
Lynda Benglis Advertisement in Artforum, November 1974, 1974
Part of SELF, portfolio of 9 prints, published in 2010
Pigment print, 86.4 x 56.4 cm
Collection La Gaia, Busca
Birth Control
Secondo Giorni, L’arte di non fare figli. Neo-malthusianesimo pratico [The art of not having children. NeoMalthusian Practical] (Florence: Società Editoriale Neo-Malthusiana, 1912)
Ettorina Cecchi, Neo-Malthusianismo Pratico [Neo-Malthusian Practical] (Bologna: Casa Editrice “La
Controcorrente”, 1913)
Ettorina Cecchi, La Procreazione [The procreation] (Florence: Il Pensiero, 1914)
Mother Earth, 1906-1917, vol. IX, no. 7, September 1914, edited by Emma Goldman. Cover illustration by
Man Ray
The Woman Rebel, no. 1, New York, 1914, edited by Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger, flyer advertising the first abortion clinic, 46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn, 1916
Photograph of Emma Goldman addressing a “sea of hats” at a birth control rally, Union Square, New
York, May 1916
Umberto Boccioni
Ritratto della madre [Portrait of the mother], 1911
Pencil on paper, 32.5 x 24.9 cm
Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni, Castello Sforzesco, Milan
Studio di testa – La madre [Study for a head – The mother], 1912
Oil and tempera on canvas, 60 x 60 cm
Museo del Novecento, Milan
La madre [The mother], 1912
Pencil on paper, 21 x 16.5 cm
Collection Trust Aletta, Turin
Oscar Bony
La familia obrera [The working class family], 1968/1999
Black-and-white photograph on paper, mounted on wooden frame with bronze plaque, 200 x 180 cm
Collection Carola Bony
Louise Bourgeois
Fillette (Sweeter Version) [Little girl], 1968/1999
Pigmented urethane rubber and hanging piece, 59.7 x 26.7 x 19.7 cm
Fragile Goddess, 1970
Bronze with gold patina, 26 x 14.3 x 13.7 cm
Femme [Woman], 2005
Bronze, silver nitrate patina, and hanging piece, 33 x 41.9 x 19.7 cm
All above works Courtesy Hauser & Wirth and Cheim & Read
Nature Study, 1984, cast in rubber 2002
Blue rubber, 76.2 x 48.3 x 38.1 cm
The Found Child, 2001
Black fabric, 30.5 x 68.6 x 40.6 cm
The Woven Child, 2002
Fabric, steel, and aluminum, 39.4 x 17.8 x 17.8 cm
The Reticent Child, 2003
Fabric, marble, stainless steel, and aluminum, 6 elements, 182.9 x 284.5 x 91.4 cm
All above works Collection The Easton Foundation
Do not abandon me, 1999
Pink fabric and thread, 12.1 x 52.1 x 21.6 cm
Stainless steel, glass and wood vitrine, 157.4 x 68.5 x 60.9 cm
Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland
Constantin Brancusi
Le nouveau né [The new born], 1920/2003
Polished bronze, 15 x 21 x 15 cm
André Breton
Self-Portrait: Automatic Writing, 1938
Photomontage, 14.2 x 10 cm
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art in the
Israel Museum
Qu’est-ce que le surréalisme? [What is Surrealism?] (Brussels: René Henriquez Editeur, 1934)
Cover illustration by René Magritte
Le Surréalisme, même [Surrealism, also], no. 1 (Paris: Librairie Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1956)
André Breton and Paul Éluard, L’immaculée conception [The immaculate conception] (Paris: Éditions
Surréalistes, José Corti, 1930)
Cover and frontispiece illustration by Salvador Dalí
Louise Joy Brown
Newborn Louise Joy Brown in the front pages of the Evening News and the Daily Mail, London, July 27,
1978
Courtesy the British Library. © The Solo Syndication, NATEN055 (Evening News), NATDMA043 (Daily
Mail)
Claude Cahun
Le père [The father], 1932
Black and white print, 23.1 x 17 cm
LAC
Leonora Carrington
The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), c. 1947
Tempera on wood, 120 x 69.2 cm
Miguel S. Escobedo
Maurizio Cattelan
Mother, 1999
Silver dye-bleach print, 158.5 x 127 cm
Collection Domenico Carluccio
Giannina Censi
Mauro Camuzzi, Giannina Censi. Danze euritmiche 1 [Giannina Censi. Eurhythmic dances I], 1930
Photograph, exhibition copy, 23 x 17 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Censi, Cen. 1.51
Mauro Camuzzi, Giannina Censi. Danze euritmiche 2 [Giannina Censi. Eurhythmic dances 2], 1930
Photograph, exhibition copy, 23 x 17 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Censi, Cen. 1.52
Cesare Cerati, Eliche. Aereocomposizione fotolibera [Propellers. Freephoto aerocomposition], 1931
Photo collage, 14.5 x 19 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Somenzi, Som. VI. 11.47
Studio Santacroce, Giannina Censi. Danza Aerofuturista 2. Posizione di partenza di aeroplano [Giannina
Censi. Aerofuturist dance 2. Starting position of the airplane], 1931
Photograph, exhibition print, 12.5 x 17 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Censi, Cen. 1.70
Studio Santacroce, Giannina Censi. Danza Aerofuturista 4 [Giannina Censi. Aerofuturist dance 4], 1931
Photograph, exhibition copy, 17.5 x 12.5 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Censi, Cen. 1.71
Studio Santacroce, Giannina Censi. Danza Aerofuturista 5 [Giannina Censi. Aerofuturist dance 5], 1931
Photograph, exhibition copy, 17.5 x 12.5 cm
Rovereto, Mart, Archivio del ‘900, Fondo Censi, Cen. 1.72
Judy Chicago
In the Beginning, 1982
Prismacolor pencil on paper, 165 x 988 cm
© Judy Chicago. Courtesy Riflemaker, London
La ciociara
Sophia Loren with Eleonora Brown in the movie Two Women by Vittorio De Sica (original title: La
ciociara, Italy, 100’, 1960)
Photograph, 23 × 35 cm
Courtesy Reporters Associati & Archivi, Rome
Larry Clark
Untitled (Pregnant Woman), from the Tulsa series, 19711981
Gelatin silver print 1981, 28 x 36 cm
Collection Pasquale Leccese. Courtesy Le Case d’Arte, Milan
Salvador Dalí
William Tell and Gradiva, 1932
Oil on copper, 30 x 24 cm
Baby Map of the World, 1939
Oil on printed paper on cardboard, 46.4 x 38.3 cm
Both works Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation
Le phénomène de l’extase [The phenomenon of ecstasy], 1933
Published in Minotaure: revue artistique et littéraire, no. 3-4 (Paris: Éditions Albert Skira, 1933, p. 67)
Gino De Dominicis
Opera unica—Unica immagine della statua inesistente [Unique work—Unique image of the nonexistent
statue], 1973
Photograph, 100 x 70 cm
Collection Marcello Pepori
Niki de Saint Phalle
Model till HON [Model for HON], 1966
Painted papier maché on chicken wire, 35 x 89 x 133 cm
Moderna Museet, Stockolm. Donation 1998 from Pontus Hultén
Valentine de Saint-Point
Manifesto della Donna futurista. Risposta a F. T. Marinetti [Manifesto of the futurist woman. Reply to F. T.
Marinetti] (Milan: Direzione del Movimento Futurista, 1912)
4 pages, 29 cm
Manifesto futurista della Lussuria [Futurist Manifesto of Lust] (Milan: Direzione del movimento futurista,
1913)
4 pages, 29 cm
Both works Rovereto, Mart, Biblioteca, Deposito Paolo Della Grazia
Les danses idéistes de Mme de Saint-Point [Ideist dance by Mme de Saint-Point], 1913
Manifesto of metachoric dance published in Fantasio, no. 17, Paris, 1914
Anastatic reprint, 30 x 22 cm
Figure de la Métachorie, Poème d’Atmosphère [Figure of Métachorie, atmosphere poem], 1913
Valentine de Saint-Point dancing, photograph published in Le Miroir, no. 7, Paris, January 11, 1914
Heliograph, modern print, 24 x 20.3 cm
Valentine de Saint-Point and her marmoset with Vivian Postel du Mas (left) and Dane Rudhyar
Chennevière (right), New York, November 21, 1916. Photo by George Grantham Bain
Vintage gelatin silver bromide print, 15.3 x 10.4 cm
Set of engravings after drawings by Vivian Postel du Mas, Valentine Gross, Morgan Russell and Valentine
de Saint-Point, 1923
10 woodcuts, limited edition on high-quality paper Lafuma Pur Fil, 14 x 10.4 cm each
Ideist figure for the poem Les pavots de sang [Poppies of blood], published in Montjoie!, special issue
dedicated to contemporary dance, II, no. 1-2, Paris, January-February 1914, p. 4
Modern print, 11 x 11 cm
Morgan Russell, Valentine de Saint-Point, published in Montjoie!, II, no. 1-2, Paris, January-February
1914, p. 13
Modern print, 9 x 13.3 cm
Gino Baldo, Valentine de Saint-Point, published in Montjoie!, II, no. 1-2, Paris, January-February 1914, p.
14
Modern print, 10 x 15 cm
Gino Baldo, Étude d’apres une figure metachorique [Study after metachoric figure ], published in
Montjoie!, II, no. 1-2, Paris, January-February 1914, p. 16
Modern print, 12 x 10 cm
All above works Collection Adrien Sina unless otherwise stated
Rineke Dijkstra
Julie, Den Haag, The Netherlands, February 29, 1994, from the New Mothers cycle, 1994
C-print, 117 x 94 cm
Saskia, Harderwijk, The Netherlands, March 16, 1994, from the New Mothers cycle, 1994
C-print, 117 x 94 cm
Tecla, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 16, 1994, from the New Mothers cycle, 1994
C-print, 117 x 94 cm
All works Courtesy Rineke Dijkstra and Marian Goodman Gallery
Nathalie Djurberg
It’s the Mother, 2008
Clay animation, video, music by Hans Berg, 6’
Courtesy Giò Marconi, Milan
Marcel Duchamp
Fountain, 1917/1964
Readymade porcelain urinal, 35.5 x 48 x 61 cm
Private collection
Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Mariée [Bride], 1934
Aquatint on Arches paper, 64.8 x 49.8 cm
Collection Antonio Nogara, New York
Ulf Linde and Per Olof Ultved, Study for the reconstruction of Marcel Duchamp’s “La mariée mise à nu par
ses célibataires, même” [The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even], 1915–23/1959–60
Painted glass, wood, and acrylic plastic, 88 x 55 x 40 cm
Moderna Museet, Stockolm. Donation 2011 PG Thelander and Louise Lidströmer
Suzanne Duchamp
ARieTte d’oubli de la chapelle étourdie [ARieTta of oblivion in the thoughtless chapel], 1920
Oil, wood, and glass eye on canvas, 54 x 63.5 cm
Private collection
Marlene Dumas
Pregnant Image, 1988-1990
Oil on canvas, 180.3 x 90.1 cm
Collection Connie and Jack Tilton. Courtesy Marlene Dumas and David Zwirner, New York/London
Keith Edmier
Beverly Edmier, 1967, 1998
Cast urethane and acrylic resin, silicone, acrylic paint, silk, wool, Lycra fabric, cast silver buttons, and
nylon tights, 129 x 77.5 x 57.2 cm
Collection Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann. Courtesy Keith Edmier and Petzel, New York
Nicole Eisenman
Hanging Birth, 1993
Oil on canvas, 184.2 x 158.8 cm
Hort Family Collection
Maria “Nusch” Éluard
Nudes dancing around a gold chalice, c. 1937
Photomontage, 9 x 14 cm
The Mayor Gallery, London
Max Ernst
48 original collages for La femme 100 têtes (The Hundred Headless Woman) (Paris: Éditions du Carrefour,
1929)
Collage on paper, dimensions variable
Private collection
Fascism
Selection of posters, postcards, photographs, publications, and newsreels from the Fascist era
Ventiquattro dicembre, Giornata della Madre e del Fanciullo [December 24, Mother and Child Day], in Il
Secolo Illustrato, XXIV, no. 51, Milan, December 21, 1935
Giornata della madre e del fanciullo: Regina Elena con madri [Mother and Child Day: Queen Elena with
mothers], Rome, 1938
Photograph, 18 x 13 cm
Giornata della madre e del fanciullo al Teatro Adriano [Mother and Child Day at the Teatro Adriano],
Rome, 1938
Photograph, 13 x 18 cm
ONMI – Opera Nazionale Maternità e Infanzia, Attestato per il buon allevamento della prole [Certificate of
good child rearing], 1939
40 x 28.5 cm
ONMI, Il tuo bimbo…[Your child…], 1939
Booklet, 10 x 6 cm
ONMI, Il ponte della bontà [The bridge of goodness], n.d.
Postcard, 10.5 x 15 cm
ONMI, postcard, n.d.
Illustrated by P. Lavagnini, 13.7 x 9 cm
ONMI, postcard, n.d.
Illustrated by Piantini, 13.7 x 9 cm
Celebrazione romana della giornata della madre e del fanciullo [Celebration of the Mother and Child Day
in Rome], Giornale Luce B1016, 30 December 1936, 1’14’’
Courtesy Istituto Luce – Cinecittà
Il Duce riceve le coppie prolifiche d’Italia [Duce Mussolini meets Italian prolific couples], Giornale Luce
C0104, 27 December 1940, 1’
Courtesy Istituto Luce – Cinecittà
Giulio Bertoletti, Le mamme d’Italia non dimenticheranno! [Italian mums won’t forget!] n.d. [1943]
Poster, 140 x 100 cm
All items Courtesy Private collection unless otherwise stated
Feminism in Italy
Selection of publications, films, and posters from the Italian Feminist movement
Collettivo femminista di cinema, Roma, Aggettivo donna [Adjective woman] (Italy, 54’, 1971)
Courtesy Cineteca Nazionale, Rome
Carla Accardi, Superiore e Inferiore (Conversazioni fra le ragazzine delle scuole medie) [Superior and
Inferior (Conversations between middle school girls)] (Rome: Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1972)
Donne è bello. Raccolta di documenti femministi internazionali [Being women is beautiful. Collection of
international feminist documents], published by Gruppo Anabasi, Milan, 1972
The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Noi e il nostro corpo. Scritto dalle donne per le donne (Milan:
Feltrinelli, 1974; original edition Our Bodies, Ourselves, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1971)
Carla Lonzi, Sputiamo su Hegel. La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale e altri scritti [Spit on Hegel. The
clitoral woman and the vaginal woman and other writings] (Rome: Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1974)
Selection of issues of the magazine Effe (Bari: Edizioni Dedalo, 1973–82)
Sessualità procreazione maternità aborto [Sexuality procreation maternity abortion], special issue of the
magazine sottosopra, Milan, February 1975
Riprendiamoci la vita. Immagini del movimento delle donne [Getting our lives back. Images of the
Women’s Movement] (Rome: Savelli editore, 1976)
Photographs by Paola Agosti
Valerie Solanas, S.C.U.M. Manifesto per l’eliminazione dei maschi (Rome, Edizioni delle donne, 1976; first
edition S.C.U.M. Manifesto, New York, 1967)
Monique Wittig, Il corpo lesbico [The lesbian body] (Rome: Edizioni delle donne, 1976; original edition
Le corps lesbien, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1973)
L’almanacco. Luoghi, nomi, incontri, fatti, lavori in corso del movimento femminista italiano dal 1972 [The
almanac. Places, names, meetings, events, work in progress of the Italian Feminist Movement since
1972] (Rome: Edizioni delle donne, 1978)
Carla Lonzi et al., La presenza dell’uomo nel femminismo [The male presence in Feminism] (Milan: Scritti
di Rivolta Femminile, 1978)
The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Noi e i nostri figli (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979; original edition
Ourselves and Our Children, New York, Random House, 1978)
Selection of records of Feminist songs
Gruppo musicale del comitato per il salario al lavoro domestico, Canti di donne in lotta: il canzoniere
femminista [Songs of women in revolt. The Feminist songbook] (Padua: I dischi dello Zodiaco, 1975)
Movimento femminista romano, Canti delle donne in lotta [Songs of women in revolt], no. 1 (Padua: I
dischi dello Zodiaco, 1975)
Alle sorelle ritrovate. Canzoni femministe [To our rediscovered sisters. Feminist Songs], curated by the
Collettivo femminista bolognese, 1975
Siamo in tante… La condizione della donna nelle canzoni popolari e femministe [There are so many of us…
The condition of women in popular and feminist songs], curated by Yuki Maraini, record and book, 1975
Selection of feminist movement’s posters from the collections and archives of Fondazione Elvira
Badaracco, Milan
Casa delle donne di Modena, Nel nome della madre [In the name of the mother], n.d.
60 x 50 cm
Movimento femminista, No all’abolizione del divorzio. Questo non è che il primo dei nostri no [No to the
abolition of divorce. This is just our first no], n. d.
70.5 x 54 cm
Quand? Lavortement Legal Gratuit sans Conditions pour Toutes [When? Free, legal abortion with no
conditions for all women], n. d.
56 x 45 cm
Archivio Libreria delle donne, Milan
The Female Image Presented by the Sexist Media Will be Smashed, n.d.
52 x 39.5 cm
Archivio Libreria delle donne, Milan
MLD – Movimento di Liberazione della Donna, A tutte le donne… Aborto Libero [To all women… Free
abortion], n.d.
100 x 70 cm
Movimento femminista, Di chi è la pancia di questa donna? [Whom does this woman’s womb belong to?],
n.d.
100 x 70 cm
Coordinamento veronese collettivi di donne, Per noi donne [For us women], n.d.
95.5 x 70 cm
Archivio UDI Verona
Movimento di liberazione della donna [Women’s liberation movement], n.d.
86 x 58 cm
Rivolta Femminile, Manifesto, 1970
70 x 50 cm
Movimento femminista Firenze, Firenze: 40 donne trascinate al comando dei carabinieri… [Florence: 40
women dragged to the police station], 1975
100 x 70
Rivolta Femminile, Io dico io [I say I], 1977
31 x 24 cm
Kvinder, Vold [Women, violence], 1977
32 x 24 cm
Archivio Libreria delle donne, Milan
Kvindernes Internationale Kampdag [International Women’s Day], 1977
59 x 42 cm
Archivio Libreria delle donne, Milan
Unione donne italiane, 7 dicembre 1978 – UDI
100 x 68.5 cm
Archivio UDI Verona
Unione Donne Italiane, Legge sull’aborto [Law on abortion], 1978
100 x 70 cm
Unione donne italiane, La legge sull’aborto è stata finalmente approvata [The law on abortion has finally
passed], 1978
100 x 68.5 cm
Archivio UDI Verona
Comitato promotore per la legge contro la violenza sessuale, 50.000 firme…La lotta è ancora molto lunga
[50,000
signatures… The fight has only just begun], 1979
100 x 67 cm
Coordinamento donne per l'autodeterminazione, 11° comandamento: non abortire [The 11th
commandment: Thou shalt not have an abortion], 1981
100 x 70 cm
Archivio UDI Verona
Movimento delle donne di Torino, Produrre e riprodurre [Produce and reproduce], 1983
100 x 70 cm
Gruppo di Attenzione sulle tecniche di riproduzione artificiale (et al.), Madre provetta [Test tube
mother], 1988
60 x 40 cm
Leonor Fini
Stryges Amaouri, 1947
Oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm
Private collection
Lucio Fontana
Concetto spaziale, Natura [Spatial Concept, Nature], 1959-1960
59-60 N 17
Bronze, Ø c. 49 cm
Concetto spaziale, Natura, 1959-1960
59-60 N 25
Bronze, Ø c. 58 cm
Concetto spaziale, Natura, 1959-1960
59-60 N 31
Bronze, Ø c. 48 cm
Concetto spaziale, Natura, 1959-1960
59-60 N 32
Bronze, Ø c. 75 cm
All above works Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan
Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio [Spatial Concept, The end of God], 1963,
63 FD 15
Oil and tears on canvas, 178 x 123 cm
Prada Collection, Milan
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud with his mother Amalia, 1925
Photograph, 25 x 18 cm
Œdipe explique l'énigme du sphinx [Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx], 1808
Reproduction hanging in Sigmund Freud’s studio of Jean-August-Dominique Ingres’s painting
Print, 20 x 15 cm
Both works Freud Museum London
Katharina Fritsch
Madonnenfigur [Madonna figure], 1982–87/2009
Polyester and paint, 170 x 43.5 x 35 cm
© Katharina Fritsch. Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery
Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn
Selection of 12 Theosophical plates for meditation, from Eranos Foundation:
Untitled, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 39.5 x 29.5 cm
The Light of the Soul (no. 13), c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 29.5 x 22.5 cm
The Grail, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 32 x 26 cm
The Central Spiritual Sun (no. 17 or 15), c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 30 x 21 cm
Sattva or Rhythm, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 40 x 30 cm
Untitled, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 45 x 32.5 cm
The Grail, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 40 x 30 cm
Reincarnation (no. 10), c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 36.5 x 25 cm
Planes, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 33.5 x 24.5 cm
The Breath of Creation, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 30.5 x 25 cm
The Chalice in the Heart, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 41.5 x 25.5 cm
The Extention of Consciousness / The Flower of the Soul, c. 1927-1934
Mixed technique on paper, 20 x 15 cm
All works Eranos Foundation. With thanks to the Eranos Foundation, Ascona for granting the permission
to show Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn’s artworks belonging to the Eranos Archives
Selection of 350 images from Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn’s archive on archetypes, section dedicated to “The
Great Mother”
Slideshow
With thanks to The Warburg Institute, London
Robert Gober
Pitched Crib, 1987
Enamel paint on wood, 97 x 186 x 128 cm
Private collection
Alice Guy-Blaché
La Fée aux Choux [The cabbage Fairy], 1896
Film transferred to digital, black-and-white, silent, 1’
Gaumont Pathé Production
David Hammons
Freudian Slip, 1995
Slip-dress and African mask, 38.2 x 20.4 x 20.4 (mask), 91.4 x 35.6 cm (slip-dress)
Courtesy Glenstone
Rachel Harrison
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 31.4 x 49.2 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 35.6 x 48.6 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 49.2 x 33.3 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 36.5 x 50.2 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 36.5 x 50.2 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 38.1 x 49.8 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 50.2 x 39.4 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 46.4 x 34.9 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 48.9 x 33.7 cm
Untitled (Perth Amboy), 2001
C-print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm
All works Courtesy Rachel Harrison and Greene Naftali, New York
Emmy Hennings
Emmy Hennings with Dada Doll, 1917
Photograph, modern print, 35 x 21 cm
Nachlass Emmy Hennings/Hugo Ball. Swiss Archive of Literature, Swiss National Library (BN), Bern
Camille Henrot
Grosse Fatigue, 2013
Video, color, sound, 13’
Original music by Joakim
Voice by Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh
Text written in collaboration with Jacob Bromberg
Producer kamel mennour, Paris; with the additional support of Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin, Paris
Production Silex Films
Silver Lion – 55th Venice Biennale, 2013
Project conducted as part of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Program, Washington, DC
Special thanks to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the Smithsonian National Museum of
Natural History, and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
© ADAGP Camille Henrot. Courtesy the artist, Silex Films and kamel mennour, Paris
Eva Hesse
No title, 1960
Oil on canvas, 125.7 x 125.7 cm
Hauser & Wirth Collection, Switzerland
Hannah Höch
Der Vater [The father], 1920
Collage, 34 x 27.5 cm
Galerie Berinson, Berlin
Der Schrei [The scream], 1930
Photocollage, 26 x 26.5 cm
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome
Für ein Fest gemacht [Made for a party], 1936
Collage on paper, 36 x 19.8 cm
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart
Valentine Hugo
9 illustrations for Paul Éluard, Le Phenix [The phoenix] (Paris: Guy Lévis Mano, 1951)
Anastatic reprints, 27.3 x 18.6 cm each
9 illustrations for Paul Éluard, Médieuses (Paris: Gallimard, 1944)
Original plates, 26 x 18 cm each
Dorothy Iannone
Suck my breast I am your most beautiful mother, 1970-1971
Collage and acrylic on canvas, 190 x 150 cm
Private collection, Milan
Joan Jonas
Mirror Check, 1970
Film transferred to DVD, black-and-white, silent, 6’. Filmed by Robert Fiore, 1974
Courtesy Joan Jonas and Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York/Paris
Birgit Jürgenssen
Nest, 1979
Vintage black and white photograph, 17.8 x 24 cm
Housewives' Kitchen Apron, 1975-2003
2 black-and-white photographs, exhibition copies, 50 x 40 cm each
All works © Estate Birgit Jürgenssen. Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London and Galerie Hubert
Winter, Vienna
Franz Kafka
Torture Machine, reconstruction of the machine after Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, 1914
Realized for the exhibition The Bachelor machines, 1975-1977, curated by Harald Szeemann
Metal, Plexiglas, hoses, cotton-wool, wood, and battery, 300 x 200 x 150 cm
Private collection, Basel
Frida Kahlo
The Wounded Deer, 1946
Oil on Masonite, 22.4 x 30 cm
Private collection
Gertrude Käsebier
Adoration, 1897
Photograph, modern print, 29.2 x 22.9 cm
Blessed Art Thou Among Women, 1899
Photograph, modern print, 23.8 x 14.3 cm
The Manger, 1899
Photograph, modern print, 32.5 x 24.4 cm
Allegory marriage, 1900-1915
Photograph, modern print, 20.2 x 29.5 cm
All works The Library of Congress, Washington DC
Mary Kelly
Primapara, Bathing Series, 1974/1996
12 black-and-white photographs
Gelatin silver on baryta paper, exhibition copy 2007, 12.7 x 18 cm each
Primapara, Manicure/Pedicure Series, 1974/1996
10 black-and-white photographs
Gelatin silver on baryta paper, exhibition copy 2007, 12.7 x 18 cm each
Both works © Generali Foundation Collection. Permanent loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Ragnar Kjartansson
Me and My Mother 2000, 2000
Video, color, sound, 7’7’’
Me and My Mother 2005, 2005
Video, color, sound, 3’40’’
Me and My Mother 2010, 2010
Video, color, sound, 19’59’’
Me and My Mother 2015, 2015
Video, color, sound, 20’25’’
All works Courtesy Ragnar Kjartansson; i8 Gallery, Reykjavik; Luring Augustine, New York
Konrad Klapheck
Die Mütterliche Freundin [The motherly girlfriend], 1966
Oil on canvas, 70 x 88 cm
Private collection. © 2015 Konrad Klapheck. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Käthe Kollwitz
Frau mit totem Kind [Woman with dead child], 1903
Etching, 42.5 x 48.6 cm
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Stuttgart
Jeff Koons
Balloon Venus (Red), 2008-2012
Mirror-polished stainless steel with transparent color coating, 259.1 x 121.9 x 127 cm
Private collection. © Jeff Koons
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Woman or incubator?), 1982-1986
Mixed media on paper, 24.7 x 25.7 cm
Collection David and Jennifer Feldman. Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Untitled (You are not yourself), 1982
Photograph and type on paper, 27.3 x 18.1 cm
Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989
Photograph and type on paper, 21 x 19.1cm
Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face), 1981
Photograph and type on paper, 23.8 x 17.8 cm
All works © Barbara Kruger. Courtesy Glenstone unless otherwise stated
Alfred Kubin
Die Fruchtbarkeit (I. Fassung) [Fertility (Version I)], 1901-1902
India ink, pen, watercolor, and spray technique on paper, 37.2 x 27.2 cm
Die Stunde der Geburt [The hour of birth], from the Weber portfolio, plate 2/15, 1903
Print on paper, 35.6 x 43.5 cm
Both works Leopold Museum, Vienna
Emma Kunz
Work no. 086, n.d.
Crayon, oil crayon on scale paper white with brown raster, 90 x 90 cm
Emma Kunz Zentrum, Würenlos
Yayoi Kusama
Phallic Girl, 1967
Mannequin with mixed media, 180 x 40 x 40 cm
Collection Caroline de Westenholz
Ketty La Rocca
La guerriglia [The guerrilla], 1964-1965
Collage on paper, 49 x 38.5 cm
Mini relax, 1964-1965
Collage on paper, 45 x 30 cm
Diario della donna che lavora [Diary of the working woman], 1964-1965
Collage on paper, 29 x 44.5 cm
Trazione anteriore [Front-wheel drive], 1965
Collage on cardboard, 45 x 30 cm
Rovereto, Mart—Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto. Archivio Tullia Denza
Vergine [Virgin], 1964-1965
Collage on paper, 30 x 45 cm
Sana come il pane quotidiano [Healthy like daily bread], 1965
Collage on paper, 44.5 x 29 cm
All works Estate Ketty La Rocca by Michelangelo Vasta unless otherwise stated
Dorothea Lange
Migrant Mother, 1936
Photographic print, exhibition copy, 30 x 18 cm
The Library of Congress, Washington DC
Maria Lassnig
Illusion von der versäumten Mutterschaft [Illusion of missed motherhood], 1998
Oil on canvas, 125 x 101.5 x 3 cm
Maria Lassnig Foundation
Sherrie Levine
Fountain (Madonna), 1991
Cast bronze, 35.6 x 63.5 x 38.1 cm
Body Mask, 2007
Cast bronze, 57.2 x 24.1 x 14.6 cm
Private collection
Tight Coffin, 2013
Cast bronze, 21.6 x 74.9 x 25.4 cm
All works Courtesy Sherrie Levine and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York unless otherwise stated
Mina Loy
Communal Cot, 1949
Collage of cardboard, paper and rags, 68 x 116 cm
Marianne Elrick-Manley Fine Art, New York
Man Ray, Portrait (Mina Loy) from the First Steps album, 1920
Laser print 1972, 28.7 x 17 cm
Private collection. Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
Lee Lozano
No title, 1962
Oil on canvas, 83.8 x 73.7
Private collection. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth
General Strike Piece, 1969
Xerography, 27.9 x 21.6 cm
No title, 1971
Ink on paper, 23.3 x 21.5 cm
All works The Estate of Lee Lozano. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth unless otherwise stated
Sarah Lucas
Mumum, 2012
Tights, fluff, and chair frame, 144.8 x 82.6 x 109.2 cm
Marc Quinn, London. Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London
Dora Maar
Père Ubu [Father Ubu], 1936
Gelatin silver print, 39.6 x 28 cm
The Bluff Collection LP
Anna Maria Maiolino
Por um Fio [By a thread] from the Fotopoemação series [Photo-poem-action], 1976
Black-and-white photograph, 52 x 79 cm
Collection Finzi, Bologna. Courtesy Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan
Mamma Roma [Mother Rome]
Anna Magnani with Ettore Garofolo in the movie Mamma Roma by Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy, 95’, 1962)
Photograph, exhibition copy, 34.5 x 35 cm
Courtesy Reporters Associati & Archivi, Rome
Alina Marazzi Hoepli
Vogliamo anche le rose [We want roses too], 2007
Documentary movie, color, sound, 84’
Produced by Mir Cinematografica with Rai Cinema. In association with Fox International Channels Italy.
In co-production with Ventura Film and RTSI – Televisione Svizzera
Produced by Gianfilippo Pedote and Francesco Virga with Elda Guidinetti and Andres Pfaeffli; Editing
Ilaria Fraioli; Sound Design Benni Atria; Sound editing Francesca Genevois; Original music Ronin;
Animation Cristina Diana Seresini; Film archival researches Riccardo Lacché and Annamaria
Licciardello; Voices Anita Caprioli, Valentina Carnelutti, Teresa Saponangelo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Fondazione e manifesto del futurismo [Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism], Milan, 1909
Mafarka il futurista [Mafarka the futurist] (Milan: Edizioni Futuriste di Poesia, 1910)
Come si seducono le donne [How to seduce women] (Florence: Edizioni da Centomila Copie, 1917)
Democrazia futurista (dinamismo politico) [Futurist democracy (political dynamism)] (Milan: Facchi
Editore,1919)
Contro il lusso femminile [Against female luxury], Milan, March 11, 1920
Scatole d'amore in conserva [Canned love] (Rome: Edizioni d’arte Il Fauno, 1927)
All works Private collection, Milan
Medea
Maria Callas in the movie Medea by Pierpaolo Pasolini (Italy, 110’, 1969)
Photograph, exhibition copy, 30 x 19.6 cm
Courtesy Mario Tursi Foto
Ana Mendieta
Silueta Sangrienta [Bleeding silhouette], 1975
Super 8mm transferred to Blu-Ray, color, silent, 1’51’’
Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece) [Anima, fireworks silhouette], 1976
Super 8mm transferred to Blu-Ray, color, silent, 2’22’’
Birth, 1981
Super 8mm transferred to Blu-Ray, color, silent, 2’3’’
Guanaroca (Esculturas Rupestres), 1981
Black and white photograph, 135.9 x 99.7 cm
Guanaroca (Esculturas Rupestres), 1981
Black-and-white photograph, 135.9 x 99.7 cm
Itiba Cahubaba (Esculturas Rupestres) [Old mother blood], 1981
Black-and-white photograph, 136.3 x 101.3 cm
All works © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection. Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York and Galleria
Raffaella Cortese, Milan
Anima, Silueta de Cohetes (Firework Piece) [Anima, Fireworks Silhouette], 1976
Super 8mm transferred to Blu-Ray, color, silent, 2’22’’
All works © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection. Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York and Galleria
Raffaella Cortese, Milan
Marisa Merz
Untitled (Fountain), 2015
Lead, water, motor, and desert rose, 20 x 200 x 100 cm
Collection Marisa Merz
Annette Messager
22 booklets from the series Annette Messager Truqueuse [Annette Messager, cheat], 1975
Cover and inside illustrated with painted or drawn patterns, black-and-white photographs
Each 18.5 x 13.5 cm, 6-8 pages
La femme et la mort [Woman and death]
La femme et la peur [Woman and fear]
La femme et le danger [Woman and danger]
La femme et le barbu [Woman and beard]
La femme épinglée [Pinned woman]
La femme et la jeune fille [The woman and the girl]
La femme et le venin [Woman and venom]
La femme et le monsieur sérieux [The woman and the serious gentleman]
La femme et l’opération [Woman and the operation]
La femme et le dessin [Woman and drawing]
La femme et la main [Woman and hand]
La femme et le refuge [Woman and shelter]
La femme et les stigmates [Woman and stigmata]
La femme et la cicatrice [Woman and scar]
La femme marquée [Marked woman]
La femme maudite [The cursed woman]
La femme et l’autre femme [The woman and the other woman]
La femme et le voyeur [La donna e il voyeur]
La femme et le saignement [The woman and the bleeding]
La femme et la vache à lait [The woman and the cash cow]
La femme homme [The woman-man]
La femme avant, la femme après [La donna prima, la donna dopo]
All works Courtesy Annette Messager and Marian Goodman Gallery. © Photo Annette Messager
Lee Miller
Untitled, Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy, Paris, France 1929
2 modern exhibition prints, 14.7 x 10 cm each
Nude, Paris, France 1930
Modern exhibition print, 18 x 23.5 cm
Untitled (Stone), Paris, France 1931
Modern exhibition print, 13.4 x 16.4 cm
Revenge on Culture, London, England 1940
Modern exhibition print, 25.4 x 25.2 cm
Women with Fire Masks, Downshire, London, England 1941
Modern exhibition print, 24 x 22.8 cm
Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, Arizona 1946
Modern exhibition print, 25.2 x 25.4 cm
All works Collection, Lee Miller Archives, England
Marisa Mori
Maternità o L’ebbrezza fisica della maternità [Maternity or physical thrill of maternity], 1936
Oil on wood, 70 x 100 cm
Private collection
Matt Mullican
Untitled (Birth to Death List), 1973
Silkscreen on Fabriano paper, 173 x 49 cm
Private collection, Zurich. Courtesy Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich
Sleeping child, 1973
Pillow and wood, dimensions variable
Courtesy Matt Mullican and Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich
Edvard Munch
Woman In Three Stages (Sphinx), 1899
Lithograph, 46. 7 x 60 cm
Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli – Castello Sforzesco, Milan
Alice Neel
Nancy and the twins, 1971
Oil on canvas, 101 x 153.4 cm
Estate of Alice Neel
Lennart Nilsson
20 photographs from the series A Child is Born, published in LIFE, New York, April 30, 1965
Exhibition prints, 29 x 27 cm each
© Lennart Nilsson
Nicholas Nixon
The Brown Sisters, 1974-2014
40 silver prints, 45.5 x 57.1 cm each
© Nicholas Nixon, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Violette Nozières
André Breton et al., Violette Nozières (Brussels: Éditions Nicolas Flamel, 1933)
Cover and 2 illustrations by René Magritte and Marcel Jean
Lorraine O’Grady
14 Prints from the Miscegenated Family Album series, 1980-1994
C-prints, 68.5 x 98 x 4 cm each (framed)
Sibling Rivalry (L: Nefertiti; R: Nefertiti’s sister, Mutnedjmet)
Cross Generational (L: Nefertiti, the last image; R: Devonia’s youngest daughter, Kimberley)
Progress of Queens (L: Devonia, age 36; R: Nefertiti, age 36)
Young Queens (L: Nefertiti, age 24; R: Devonia, age 24)
Worldly Princesses (L: Nefertiti's daughter, Merytaten; R: Devonia’s daughter, Kimberley)
Young Princesses (L: Nefertiti’s daughter, Ankhesenpaaten; R: Devonia’s daughter, Candace)
Motherhood (L: Nefertiti; R: Devonia reading to Candace and Edward, Jr.)
A Mother's Kiss (T: Candace and Devonia; B: Nefertiti and daughter)
Ceremonial Occasions I (L: Devonia as Matron of Honor; R: Nefertiti performing a lustration)
Ceremonial Occasions II (L: Devonia attending a wedding; R: Nefertiti performing an Aten ritual)
Sisters I (L: Neferneferuaten Nefertiti; R: Devonia Evangeline O’Grady)
Sisters II (L: Nefertiti’s daughter Merytaten; R: Devonia’s daughter)
Sisters III (L: Nefertiti’s daughter, Maketaten; R: Devonia’s daughter, Kimberley)
Sisters IV (L: Devonia’s sister, Lorraine; R: Nefertiti’s sister, Mutnedjmet)
All works Courtesy Lorraine O’Grady and Alexander Gray Associates, New York
Roman Ondák
Teaching to Walk, 2002/2015
A mother is invited to come to the gallery with her one-year-old boy to teach him to walk there
Performance at Palazzo Reale, Milan
Courtesy Roman Ondák
Yoko Ono
Freedom, 1970
Video, color, 1’
My Mommy Is Beautiful, 2004-2015
Digital participatory project, official website mymommyisbeautiful.com
Both works © Yoko Ono
Catherine Opie
Self-Portrait / Pervert, 1994
C-print, 102 x 76 cm (framed)
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Miggi & Ilene, Los Angeles, California, 1995
C-print, 103 x 128 cm
Courtesy Catherine Opie; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Self-Portrait/Nursing, 2004
C-print, 101.6 x 81.3 cm
Private collection. Courtesy Studio Guenzani, Milan
Meret Oppenheim
Votivbild (Würgeengel), [Votive picture (Strangling angel)], 1931
India ink and watercolor, 34 x 17.5 cm
Private collection
Valentine Penrose
Le saut de la servant, [The maid’s jump], n. d.
Collage on paper, 15.8 x 22 cm
Le fils du petit soldat, [The little soldier’s son], n. d.
Collage on paper, 20 x 20.8 cm
Le Home Guard, Le Fin de la Guerre, Les Frères Papillon [The home guard, the end of the war, the Butterfly
Brothers], n.d.
Collage on paper, 19.8 x 15.8 cm
Untitled collage, n.d.
Collage on paper, 22 x 17.0 cm
Les Fées I [Fairies I], c. 1934
Collage on paper, 17 x 24 cm
Les Fées 2 [Fairies 2], c. 1934
Collage on paper, 44 x 31.4 cm (framed)
The Fog, c. 1934
Collage on paper, 15.3 x 23.7 cm
Ariane [Ariadne], c. 1934
Collage on paper, 16.2 x 20.3 cm
La strategie militaire [Military strategy], 1934 (dated)
Collage on paper, 25.5 x 19 cm
All works The Penrose Collection, England 2015
Francis Picabia
Intervention d’une femme au moyen d’une machine [Intervention of a woman by means of a machine],
1915
Gouache and pencil on board, 76 x 51 cm
Private collection
Canter; For-Ever; De Zayas! De Zayas!, 3 drawings published in 291, no. 5-6, New York, June-August 1915,
pp. 2, 4 and 5
Anastatic reprint 1993, 37 x 26.8 cm each
Novia [Girlfriend], published in 391, no. 1, New York, January 1917, cover
Anastatic reprint 1993, 42.5 x 28.7 cm
Flamenca, published in 391, no. 3, New York, March 1917, cover
Anastatic reprint 1993, 42.5 x 28.7 cm
Âne [Donkey], published in 391, no. 5, New York, June 1917, cover
Anastatic reprint 1993, 42.5 x 28.7 cm
Américaine [American girl], published in 391, no. 6, New York, July 1917, cover
Anastatic reprint 1993, 42.5 x 28.7 cm
Ballet Mécanique [Mechanic ballet], published in 391, no. 7, New York, August 1917, cover
Anastatic reprint 1993, 42.5 x 28.7 cm
18 drawings for Poème et dessins de la fille née sans mere [Poems and drawings of a girl born with no
mother] (Lausanne: Imprimeries Réunies, 1918)
Exhibition copy, 24 x 16 cm each
Novia [Girlfriend], 1919-1922
Gouache on cardboard, 76 x 49 cm
Private collection. Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
La Sainte Vierge [The Blessed Virgin], published in 391, no. 12, New York, March 1920, p. 3
Anastatic reprint 1993, 56 x 37.8 cm
All works Private collection, Milan unless otherwise stated
The Pill
Photograph portraying Gregory Pincus, John Rock and Celso-Ramón García, inventors of the first birthcontrol pill, Enovid (1958). The pill was made available on the market in the United States on September
15, 1960 by the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co., Chicago
Courtesy University of Massachusetts Medical School Archives, University of Massachusetts Medical
School, Worcester, Massachusetts
Photograph of the Enovid bottle, 1962
© Everett Collection / Contrasto
Anovlar, first birth-control pill made available on the market in Europe from 1961 by the pharmaceutical
company Schering AG, Berlin
Il Segreto [The secret], picture-story published by AIED – Associazione Italiana per l’Eduzazione
Demografica, 1973
Reproduction of the poster Basta una Pillola [A pill is enough], Milan, 1967. Graphic design Gianfranco
Iliprandi
Maria Luisa Zardini De Marchi, Inumane Vite [Inhuman lives] (Milan: Sugar, 1969)
Giovanna Berneri, Cesare Zaccaria, Controllo delle nascite [Birth control] (Milan: Editoriale Ethos, 1954)
Reproduction of the poster Preveniamo con gli anticoncezionali le tragedie dell’aborto [Let us use
contraceptives to prevent the tragedies of abortion], Bolzano, 1955
All above materials Courtesy AIED – Associazione Italiana per l’Educazione Demografica unless
otherwise stated
Pope Paul VI, encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Milan: Edizioni Sapere, 1968)
Pope Paul VI on the cover of Time, vol. 81, no. 26, Chicago, June 28, 1963
Psycho
The corpse of Norman Bathes’s mother, Norma, in the movie Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock (USA, 109’,
1960)
Photograph, exhibition copy, 20 x 35 cm
Courtesy Universal Studios Licensing LLC and Hitchcock Estate. © 1960 Shamley Productions, Inc.
Carol Rama
Appassionata [Passionate], 1939
Watercolor on paper, 47.4 x 34.5 cm
Private collection, Milan
Man Ray
La Femme [The woman], originally titled L’Homme [The man], 1920
Photographic print, exhibition copy, 30 x 24 cm
© Man Ray Trust
Shadow (La Femme) [The woman] from the First Steps album, 1920
Laser print 1972, 29 x 20.3 cm
L’Enigme d’Isidore Ducasse [The enigma of Isidore Ducasse], 1920
Reproduction from 1972
Sewing machine, wool, string, 45 x 58 x 23 cm
Marcel Duchamp déguisé en Rrose Sélavy [Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy], 1921
Photographic print 1980, 27.9 x 21.6 cm
Ciné-Sketch: Adam, Éve (Marcel Duchamp et Bronia Perlmutter) [Cine-Sketch: Adam, Eve (Marcel
Duchamp and Bronia Perlmutter)], 1924
Photograph, modern print, 28.2 x 21.7 cm
© Man Ray Trust
Erotique voilée, Meret Oppenheim à la presse chez Louis Marcoussis [Erotic veiled, Meret Oppenheim with
printing-press flywheel at Louis Marcoussis’], 1933
Photographic print 1980, 40.4 x 30.5 cm
All works Private collection, Milan. Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan unless otherwise stated
Regina
Danzatrice [Dancer], 1930
Aluminum, 31 x 44 x 13 cm
Private collection, Milan
La Révolution Surrealiste [The Surrealist revolution]
Portrait of Germaine Berton, in La Révolution Surréaliste, I, no. 1, Paris, December 1924, p. 17
Anastatic reprint, 30 x 21 cm
René Magritte, Je ne vois pas la [femme] cachée dans la forêt [I don’t see the [woman] hidden in the
forest], in La Révolution Surréaliste, V, no. 12, Paris, December 1929, p. 73
Anastatic reprint, 27.5 x 19 cm
From the top left: Maxime Alexandre, Louis Aragon, André Breton, Luis Buñuel, Jean Caupenne, Paul
Éluard, Marcel Fourrier, René Magritte, Albert Valentin, André Thirion, Yves Tanguy, Georges Sadoul,
Paul Nougé, Camille Goemans, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí
Man Ray, Groupe surréaliste (Séance d’écriture automatique) [Surrealist group (automatic writing
session)], 1924
Originally published on the cover of La Révolution Surrealiste, I, no. 1, Paris, December 1924
Photographic print 1980, 17 x 22 cm
Simone Breton with (from left to right) Max Morise, Roger Vitrac, Jacques-André Boiffard, André Breton,
Paul Éluard, Pierre Naville, Giorgio de Chirico, Philippe Soupault, Jacques Baron, Robert Desnos
Private collection. Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
Pipilotti Rist
Mother, Son & the Holy Milanese Garden, 2002/2015
Video installation, 1 small LCD monitor, printed and cut out plastic foil on chrome steel, 1 player, color,
silent, 6’18’’ (loop), dimensions variable
Courtesy Pipilotti Rist; Hauser & Wirth; Luhring Augustine, New York
Enif Robert
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Enif Robert, Un ventre di donna. Romanzo chirurgico [A Woman's womb.
Surgical novel] (Illustrated edition by Lucio Venna, Milan: Facchi Editore, 1919)
Rosa Rosà
Untitled, c. 1918
Pencil on paper, 34 x 29.2 cm
Fondazione Echaurren Salaris, Rome
3 illustrations for Bruno Corra, Sam Dunn è morto. Romanzo sintetico futurista [Sam Dunn is dead.
Futurist synthetic novel] (Milan: Studio Editoriale Lombardo, 1917)
Exhibition copy, 19 x 14 cm each
8 illustrations for Mario Carli, Notti filtrate [Filtered nights] (Florence: Edizioni de l’Italia Futursita,
1918)
Exhibition prints, 25 x 17 cm each
3 illustrations for Bruno Corra, Madrigali e grotteschi [Madrigals and grotesques] (Milan: Facchi Editore,
1919)
Exhibition prints, 20 x 13 cm each
2 illustrations for Arnaldo Ginna, Le locomotive con le calze [The locomotives in stockings] (Milan: Facchi
Editore, 1919)
Exhibition prints, 20 x 14 cm each
All works Courtesy Rovereto, Mart, Biblioteca unless otherwise stated
Martha Rosler
Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975
Video, black-and-white, sound, 6’9’’
Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Suzanne Santoro
24 images from the second edition of Per una espressione nuova. Towards new expression (Rome, 1979)
and texts from the first edition (Rome: Rivolta Femminile, 1974)
Prints, 20 x 15 cm
Courtesy Suzanne Santoro
Carolee Schneemann
Interior Scroll, 1975
13 images black-and-white gelatin silver prints on fiber paper, 28 x 35.5 cm each
Courtesy Carolina Nitsch and Elisabeth Wingate
Jean-Frédéric Schnyder
Krippe [Nativity scene], 1993
Printed cardboard, 54 x 40 x 64.5 cm
Kindlimord [Massacre of the Innocents], 1993
Cardboard, painted, 26 x 41 x 108 cm
Both works Private collection
Thomas Schütte
Vater Staat [Father state], 2010
Cast steel, 375 x 155 x 110 cm
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #205, 1989
C-print, 156.2 x 121.9 cm
Skarstedt
Untitled #216, 1989
C-print, 221.3 x 142.6 cm
Collection Metro Pictures, New York
Untitled #223, 1990
C-print, 147.3 x 106.7 cm
Private collection
Kiki Smith
Mother / Child, 1993
Beeswax with hardener, cheese cloth, dowels, and powder pigments, life size
Private collection
Nancy Spero
Sheela-Na-Gig at Home, 1996
Handprinting on paper, clothing, clothesline, wooden clothespins
Courtesy The Nancy Spero and Leon Golub Foundation for the Arts and Galerie Lelong New York/Paris
Sturtevant
Duchamp Fresh Widow, 1992
Enamel paint on wood, leather, glass, and resin, 77 x 51.5 x 10.5 cm
Duchamp Coin de chasteté [Wedge of chastity], 1967
Bronze and dental plastic, 8.8 x 6.3 x 4 cm
Both works Estate Sturtevant, Paris. Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg
Suffragettes
Material from the women’s suffrage campaign in the US and UK
Votes for Our Mothers, brooch, United Kingdom
A Suffragist prisoner on hunger strike being force fed, image published in Illustrated London News,
London, April 27, 1912
The Suffragist, vol. I, no. 5, December 13, 1913
The Woman Citizen, Boston, October 27, 1917
Cover illustration by James Montgomery Flagg, Women Bring All Voters Into the World, Let Women Vote
Courtesy Iowa Women’s Suffrage Collection, State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines
National Woman Suffrage Association, Let Women Vote, sign, 1919
All works Private collection unless otherwise stated
Alina Szapocznikow
Popiersie bez głowy [Headless torso], 1968
Polyester resin and polyurethane foam, 46 x 64 x 73 cm
Courtesy Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw
Sophie Taeuber-Arp
Dr. Komplex, Freudanalytikus¸ Wache [Dr Complex, Freudanalytic, Guard]
3 Dada figures for König Hirsch [King Stag] by Carlo Gozzi, 1918
Wood, paint, brass, metal eyelets, 64 x Ø 18 cm; 56 x 18 x 18 cm; 41 x 20 x 20 cm
Zürcher Hochschule der Künste/Museum für Gestaltung Zürich/Kunstgewerbesammlung
Dorothea Tanning
Rapture, 1944
Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 61 cm
Private collection, New York. © The Estate of Dorothea Tanning
Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio
Anita Ekberg and Peppino De Filippo in the movie The temptations of Dr. Antonio by Federico Fellini,
episode from Boccaccio ’70 (original title: Le tentazioni del dottor Antonip, Italy, France, 208’, 1962)
Photograph, exhibition copy, 35 x 34 cm
Courtesy Reporters Associati & Archivi, Rome
Bevete più latte / prodotto italiano / rimedio sovrano / di tutte le età [Drink more milk / Italian product /
sovereign remedy / of all ages], jingle from the movie Le tentazioni del Dottor Antonio
Audio excerpt. By SIAE 2015
Toyen
6 lithographs from Tir / Strelnice [The shooting gallery], 1946 (Paris: Éditions Maintenant, 1973; first
edition 1946)
Original plates, 33 x 45 cm each
Private collection
Rosemarie Trockel
Replace me, 2011
Digital print, 32.6 x 40 cm
Private collection
Courtesy Sprüth Magers
Rosemarie Trockel and Günter Weseler, Fly Me to the Moon, 2011
Mixed media, sound, c. 82 x 120 x 50 cm
Courtesy Rosemarie Trockel and Günter Weseler; Sprüth Magers; Cosar HMT
Andra Ursuta
Conversion Table, 2012
Concrete, wire mesh, manure, tint, vegetable fiber, and trim coins, 94 x 46 x 46 cm
Private collection, Courtesy Andra Ursuta and Ramiken Crucible, New York
VALIE EXPORT
Die Vorstellungen eines Kindes, “Gott ist ein Mann” [The Imagination of a child, “God is a man”], 1971
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 44 x 60 cm
Die Träume eines Kindes, Toilette [The dreams of a child, toilet], 1971
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Die Lust eines Kindes [The delight of a child], 1971
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 44 x 60 cm
Die Wünsche eines Kindes [The wishes of a child], 1972
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Mädchen / Frau mit durchtrennten Arm, Puppe [Girl / woman with cut arm, doll], 1972
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 29.5 x 41.5 cm
Die Träume eines Kindes, Klavierzimmer [The dreams of a child, piano room], 1972
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 30 x 41 cm
Kind vor Spiegel / Kiste [Child in front of mirror / case], 1972
Childhood drawing, pencil on paper, 30.5 x 42 cm
All works © VALIE EXPORT. Courtesy VALIE EXPORT and Charim Galerie, Vienna
Remedies Varo
Papilla estellar [Celestial pablum], 1958
Oil on masonite, 91.5 x 60.7 cm
FEMSA Collection
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
Enduring Ornament, 1913
Found object, metal, Ø 12 cm
Mark Kelman, New York
Ear-ring Object, 1917-1919
Steel watch spring, celluloid, 2 ebony beads, 2 brass earring screws, 2 plastic (faux ivory) screw guards,
metal, wire, contained in glass bell jar with hook for display, 12 x 7.6 x 7.6 cm
Mark Kelman, New York
Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, 1919
Collage, pastel, ink on board, 31 x 46 cm
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art in the
Israel Museum
Affectionate. Wheels are Growing on Rose Bushes, 1921-1922
Ink on paper, 14 x 22.2 cm
Courtesy Francis M. Naumann Fine Arts, New York
Facing, 1924
Ink and pastel on foil, 19 x 10.7 cm
Courtesy Francis M. Naumann Fine Arts, New York
Morton Livingston Schamberg and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, God, 1917
Wood miter box, cast iron plumbing trap, height: 31.4 cm, base: 7.6 x 12.1 x 29.5 cm
Photographic reproduction of the sculpture
Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
Man Ray, Coat Stand, from the First Steps album, 1920
Laser print 1972, 28.5 x 17 cm
Private collection. Courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
Charles Sheeler, Portrait of Marcel Duchamp by Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, 1920
Gelatin silver print, 20.3 x 15.2 cm
The Bluff Collection LP
George Biddle, The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, 1921
Lithograph, 35.8 x 44.3 cm
Courtesy Francis M. Naumann Fine Arts, New York
The Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven in her Greenwich Village apartment, December 1915
3 black-and-white photographs, exhibition copies, 50 x 40 cm each
© Bettmann/CORBIS
Kara Walker
Motherland, 2004
Gouache and gesso on paper, 203.2 x 154.3 cm
LAC
Nari Ward
Amazing Grace, 1993
280 baby strollers, fire hoses, sound, dimensions variable
Private collection
Andy Warhol
Mrs. Warhol, 1966 (3 excerpts)
16mm film transferred to digital file, color, sound, 20’
Factory Diary: Julia Warhola in Bed, c. 1970-1971
½” reel-to-reel videotape transferred to digital file, black and white, sound, 23’
All works Collection The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Gillian Wearing
Self Portrait as My Mother Jean Gregory, 2003
Framed black and white print, 150 x 131 cm
Maureen Paley, London
Mary Wigman
Anonymous, Mary Wigman dancing Hexentanz [Witch dance], n.d. [1926]
Film transferred to digital file, black and white, sound, 3’
With thanks to Danish Film Institute—Film Archive, Copenhagen. © Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln
Hannah Wilke
Intra Venus Series #4, July 26 and February 19, 1992
C-print supergloss, 180.3 x 119.3 cm each
Marsie, Emanuelle, Damon and Andrew Scharlatt, Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles.
Courtesy Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Cathy Wilkes
Untitled, 2015
Mixed media, dimensions variable
Courtesy Cathy Wilkes and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf photographed in her mother's dress, 1924
Published in Vogue, New York, May 1926. Photo Maurice Beck and Helen MacGregor
Photographic print, exhibition copy, 35 x 29 cm
© The Condé Nast Publications Ltd
Růžena Zátková
Marinetti, c. 1921
Oil on canvas, 90 x 100 cm
Private collection, Milan
Unica Zürn
Portrait (Hans Bellmer), 1965
Gauche and watercolor, 66 x 50 cm
Collection abcd, Paris
Massimiliano Gioni | Bio
Massimiliano Gioni (b. 1973, Busto Arsizio, Italy) is Artistic Director of the
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, and Artistic Director of the New Museum, New
York.
He has curated numerous international exhibitions and biennials, including the 55th
Venice Biennale, which he directed in 2013; the 8th Gwangju Biennial (2010); the 4th
Berlin Biennial, co-curated with Maurizio Cattelan and Ali Subotnick (2006); and
Manifesta 5, co-curated with Marta Kuzma (2004).
At the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Gioni has curated major solo shows and public art
projects by Allora & Calzadilla (2013); Cyprien Gaillard (2012); Pipilotti Rist (2011);
Paul McCarthy (2010); Tacita Dean (2009); Peter Fischli and David Weiss (2008); Tino
Sehgal (2008); Paweł Althamer (2007); Martin Creed (2006); Paola Pivi (2006); Urs
Fischer (2005); Anri Sala (2005); John Bock (2004); Maurizio Cattelan (2004); Darren
Almond (2003); and Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (2003), as well as special
projects and incursions that have involved over a hundred Italian and international
artists.
Over his seven-year tenure at the New Museum, Massimiliano Gioni has curated solo
exhibitions by major international artists such as Tacita Dean (2012); Klara Lidén
(2012); Carsten Höller (2011–12); Lynda Benglis (2011); Gustav Metzger (2011);
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2011); Paul Chan (2008); and Urs Fischer (2008); among
other artists. Gioni’s group shows—which include NYC 1993: Experimental Jet Set, Trash
and No Star (2013); Ghosts in the Machine (2012); Ostalgia (2011); the inaugural
Triennial Younger Than Jesus (2009); and After Nature (2008)—have become signature
events of the Museum’s programming.
In 2014, Gioni and the Museum’s curatorial team organized solo shows by Paweł
Althamer, Roberto Cuoghi, Camille Henrot, and Ragnar Kjartansson, as well as the
group exhibition Here and Elsewhere, a vast survey of contemporary art from the Arab
world. In October 2014, he curated the first American retrospective of the work of Chris
Ofili.
Gioni has contributed to many publications and magazines including Artforum, frieze,
Parkett, Tate Etc., and Flash Art, for which he served as the US editor from 1999 to
2003. He cofounded the Wrong Gallery with Maurizio Cattelan and Ali Subotnick, with
whom he has also directed the independent art magazines The Wrong Times and
Exhibitions
The Great Mother
Women, Maternity, and Power in Art and Visual Culture
1900–2015
An exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni
Through the work by 127 international artists, The Great Mother analyzes the iconography
of motherhood in the art and visual culture of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, from
early avant-garde movements to the present.
Whether as a symbol of creativity or as a metaphor for art itself, the archetype of the mother
has been a central figure in the history of art, from the Venuses of the Stone Age to the “bad
girls” of the postfeminist era. The more familiar version of “Mamma” has also become a
stereotype closely tied to the image of Italy.
Published on the occasion of the major exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni (artistic
director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, and of the New Museum, New York),
promoted by the Cultural Office of the City of Milan, conceived and produced by the
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in partnership with Palazzo Reale for Expo in Città 2015, the
volume is devoted to women’s power: in undertaking an analysis of the representation of
motherhood, The Great Mother traces a history of women’s empowerment, chronicling gender
struggles, sexual politics, and clashes between tradition and emancipation through the work
of some of the leading masters of the twentieth century, among which Marcel Duchamp,
Man Ray, Umberto Boccioni, Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo.
In the volume, edited by Massimiliano Gioni and Roberta Tenconi, the forewords by Giuliano
Pisapia, Filippo Del Corno, Domenico Piraina and the introduction by Beatrice Trussardi are
followed by contributions by Massimiliano Gioni (The Great Mother), Lucia Re
(Mater–Materia), Adrien Sina (Valentine de Saint-Point), Ruth Hemus (Daughters Born
without Mothers), Calvin Tomkins (Our Lady of Desire), Whitney Chadwick (Gifts of Women),
Guido Tintori (In the Name of the Motherland), Matteo Pavesi (Mother Scenes), Marco
Belpoliti (The Mythography of the Mother), Raffaella Perna (The Power of the Second Sex),
Pietro Rigolo (Harald Szeemann’s La Mamma), Lea Vergine (The Other Half of the AvantGarde), Barbara Casavecchia (The Imitation Game). The catalogue is concluded by
monographic texts on key figures and themes and exhibition checklist.
2015, Skira / Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
English and Italian editions
21 x 28 cm, 400 pages, 277 colour illustrations, paperback
ISBN 978-88-572-2956-0 I, -2860-0 E
€ 39,00 $ 45.00 £ 28.00
Palazzo Reale, Milan
August 26 – November 15, 2015
Skira editore spa
Palazzo Casati Stampa
via Torino 61
20123 Milano
t. +39 02.72.444.1
f. +39 02.72.444.219
www.skira.net
Registro Società
Milano 0346905
volume 00008515
fascicolo 05
CCIAA 1451189
capitale sociale
€ 3.000.000
Società per azioni con unico socio
ai sensi dell’art. 2362 cod. civ.
partita iva/cod fiscale
11282450151
Lucia Crespi
Ufficio stampa Skira
via Francesco Brioschi 21
20136 Milano
t. +39 02.89.41.55.32
+39 02.89.40.16.45
f. +39 02.89.41.00.51
lucia@luciacrespi.it
!
For$the$exhibition$
The$Great$Mother$
The$Fondazione$Nicola$Trussardi$and$the$City$of$Milan$present$$
$
Teaching)to)Walk)
$$
A$performance$by$the$artist$Roman$Ondák$
and$$
An$Instagram$Call$inspired$by$the$performance$$
$
The$great$collective$story$of$an$unpredictable$moment:$
a$child’s$first$steps$
$
For$the$performance$we$are$seeking$mothers!
of$babies$about$8$to$12$months$old$!
interested$in$taking$part$with$their$child!
!
Teaching)to)Walk))
is$part$of$the$exhibition$$
The$Great$Mother$
curated$by$Massimiliano$Gioni$
promoted$by$Comune$di$Milano$|$Cultura$
conceived$and$produced$by$the$Fondazione$Nicola$Trussardi$
in$partnership$with$Palazzo$Reale$
for$ExpoinCittà$2015$
$$
Palazzo$Reale,$Milan$
August$26$–$November$15,$2015$|$opening$August$25,$2015!!
W
!!
$
During! The) Great) Mother,! an! exhibition! curated! by! Massimiliano! Gioni,! promoted! by!
Comune$ di$ Milano$ |$ Cultura,! and! conceived! and! produced! by! the! Fondazione$ Nicola$
Trussardi$ in$ partnership$ with$ Palazzo$ Reale$ for$ ExpoinCittà$ 2015,!the!performance!
Teaching)to)Walk)by!Slovakian!artist!Roman$Ondák!is!making!its!Italian!premiere:!every!!
!
day,!in!the!exhibition!space,!a!mother!is!teaching!her!child!to!walk.!
!
The!Fondazione$Nicola$Trussardi!is!therefore!seeking!mothers$of$babies$about$8$to$12$
months$old,!interested!in!taking!part!in!the!performance!with!their!child.$
!
Parallel! to! the! performance,! the! Fondazione$ Nicola$ Trussardi! is! launching!
#TeachingToWalk$on!Instagram:$an!invitation!to!share!a!photo!of!your!own!first!steps!or!
those!of!someone!dear!to!you.!!
!
THE$PERFORMANCE$U$TEACHING$TO$WALK$$
For!the!performance!Teaching)to)Walk)(2002),!presented!here!for!the!first!time!in!Italy,!
the!Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!is!seeking!mothers$(of$male$babies)$who$are$willing$to$
come$once$a$day,$for$about$half$an$hour$each$time,$to$visit$the$exhibition$and$walk$
with$their$child$in$the$exhibition$space.!
Springing! from! the! personal! experience! of! the! artist,! who! as! a! father! found! himself!
watching! and! sharing! the! intimate! relationship! between! his! wife! and! son! as! she! was!
teaching! him! to! walk,! Teaching)to)Walk! homes$ in$ on$ the$ specific$ moment$ in$ which$ a$
child$literally$takes$his$first$steps$towards$independence!and!gradually!loses!physical!
contact! with! his! mother.! Capturing! an! action! as! utterly! unpredictable! as! a! small! child’s!
behavior,! the! work! is! in! constant! evolution;! it! invites! viewers! to! discover! and! share! this!
pivotal!moment!not!just!by!portraying!it,!but!by!creating!genuine!involvement.!!
$
THE$ARTIST$–$ROMAN$ONDÁK$
Roman$ Ondák! (b.! 1966! in! Žilina,! Slovakia)! is! considered! one! of! the! most! interesting!
figures! on! the! international! art! scene! and! his! works! have! been! exhibited! in! the! world's!
leading!museums,!including!the!Museum!of!Modern!Art!in!New!York!and!Tate!Modern!in!
London.!He!has!taken!part!in!prestigious!contemporary!art!exhibitions!such!as!Documenta!
13!(2012)!and!the!Venice!Biennale,!where!in!2009!he!represented!the!Slovak!Republic.!
Through! his! works! and! performances,! Roman! Ondák! explores! the! relationship! between!
art!and!life!and!introduces!subtle!changes!into!everyday!routines,!turning!normal!actions!
into!living!sculpture.!!
His!performances!often!rely!on!the!participation!of!the!general!public,!creating!works!that!
explore!human!behavior!and!grow!out!of!the!interaction!between!different!individuals.!!
$
INSTAGRAM$CALL$U$#TeachingToWalk$
#TeachingToWalk$is$an$open$call$to$the$entire$Instagram$community:!an!invitation!to!
share!a!photo!of!your!own!first!steps!or!those!of!someone!dear!to!you.!An!unpredictable!
moment.!The!first!act!of!independence.!!
Taking! part! is! easy:! just! post! one! or! more! pictures! on! Instagram! with! the! hashtag!
#TeachingToWalk.!All!the!photographs!shared!by!the!community!will!be!collected!into!a!
large,!ongoing!album!that!can!be!viewed!on!the!site!www.lagrandemadre.org.!!
The!call!will!close!on!November!15,!2015!along!with!the!exhibition!The)Great)Mother.!!
$
$
!
!
THE$EXHIBITION$–$THE$GREAT$MOTHER$
The! exhibition! The) Great) Mother! will! be! open! daily! from! August$ 26$ to$ November$ 15,$
2015,! and! will! be! the! key! event! on! the! ExpoinCittà! calendar! for! the! second! half! of! Expo!
2015.!
With! over! 400! works! by! 139! international$ artists,$ writers$ and$ directors! alongside!
documents!and!other!descriptive!artifacts!–!on!loan!from!some!twenty!museums!around!
the! world,! as! well! as! foundations,! archives,! private! collections! and! galleries! –! and! an!
exhibition! layout! that! covers! some! 2000$ square$ meters$ (20,000$ square$ feet),$
stretching$ through$ 29$ rooms$ on$ the$ middle$ floor$of$Palazzo$Reale,!The)Great)Mother!
will! analyze! the! iconography$ of$ motherhood$ in$ the$ art$ and$ visual$ culture$ of$ the$
twentiethU$ and$ twentyUfirst$ centuries,! from! early! avantcgarde! movements! to! the!
present.!!
!
!
A! special! thanks! to! the! Happybimbo! division! at! Sitar! for! providing! the! favor! kits! at! the!
disposal!of!the!mothers!and!toddlers!participating!in!the!performance.!
!
Milan,!August!25,!2015!
!
!
For!more!information!on!the!performance!and!to!participate:!
Giulia!Chiapparelli!and!Denise!Solenghi!!
Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!
T.!+39!02!8068821!!c!press@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!
!
!
!
Press!info:!
!
Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!Press!Office!
Lara!Facco!
Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!
Piazza!Eleonora!Duse!4!c!20122!Milan!
T.!+39!02!8068821!|!M.!+39!338!6075380!
lf@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!press@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!
www.fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!
!
Comune!di!Milano!Press!Office!
Elena!Conenna!
Palazzo!Reale!
Piazza!Duomo!14!–!20121!Milan!
elenamaria.conenna@comune.milano.it!
MIC – MUSEO INTERATTIVO DEL CINEMA
Viale Fulvio Testi 121, Milano
Spazio Oberdan Milano
Viale Vittorio Veneto 2
THE GREAT MOTHER
From August 25th to September 24th – MIC
From September 25th to October 11th – Spazio Oberdan
From August 25th to October 11th, 2015 at MIC – Museo Interattivo del Cinema and
Spazio Oberdan, Fondazione Cineteca Italiana, within the Expo events in the city,
presents THE GREAT MOTHER, a film festival of 38 events, linked to the exhibition The
Great Mother (Milano, Palazzo Reale, August 26th – November 15th 2015) dedicated to
the great themes of maternity and women's empowerment.
The retrospective will be divided into two parts: the first, from August 25th to
September 24th will be held at the MIC (Viale Fulvio Testi 121 Milan), the second, from
September 25th to October 11th at the Spazio Oberdan (Viale Vittorio Veneto 2 Milan).
The exhibition The Great Mother, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, is conceived and
produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi with Palazzo Reale and sponsored by the City
of Milan | Cultura for Expo in città 2015, and is an opportunity to analyze the
iconography and the representation of motherhood in the art of the twentieth century,
from the avant-garde to the present day. It will be a reflection on the power of women,
not only on the creative and generative power of the mother, but also on the power
denied to women and the power gained by women during the twentieth century.
Starting from the representation of motherhood, the exhibition expands to cycle
through a century of clashes and battles between emancipation and tradition, telling
the transformations of sexuality, genres and the perception of the body and its desires.
Cinema, “the Seventh Art”, has repeatedly toyed with the topic, since the time of the
silent era. Fondazione Cineteca Italiana takes therefore the opportunity to organize a
retrospective that is not limited to the issue of motherhood, but that ideally pays
homage to the entire female population, proposing a series of films that are all portraits
of great women, whether mothers or directors, Amazons or unruly teenagers to
discover their innermost self. A very rich program, with titles ranging from
masterpieces of the silent era to the most recent proposals of emerging authors of
contemporary cinema.
CALENDAR
MIC – MUSEO INTERATTIVO DEL CINEMA (From August 25th to September 24th)
25/8 h 17.00
Il primo respiro
Gilles de Maistre. France, 2007, 100’.
25/8 h 19.00
Mamma Roma
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Italy, 1962, 120’.
26/8 h 17.00
La ciociara
Vittorio De Sica. Italy, 1960, 110’.
26/8 h 19.00/ 22/9 h 17.00
Soffio al cuore
Louis Malle. France, 1971, 119’.
27/8 h 17.00
Her
Spike Jonze. USA, 2013, 126’.
27/8 h 19.15
Un’ora sola ti vorrei
Alina Marazzi. Italy, 2002, 55’.
28/8 h 16.00 e 19.00
Vergine giurata
Laura Bispuri. Italy, 2015, 90’.
29/8 h 16.00/20/9 h 16.00
Rosemary’s Baby – Nastro rosso a New York
Roman Polanski. USA, 1968, 136’.
30/8 h 16.00
17 ragazze
Delphine e Muriel Coulin. France, 2011, 90’.
30/8 h 19.00/ 19/9 h 16.00
La passione di Giovanna d’ Arco
Carl Theodor Dreyer. France, 1928, 85’, silent.
1/9 h 17.00
Mary
Abel Ferrara. USA, 2005, 83’.
1/9 h 19.00
Lorna
Russ Meyer. USA, 1964, 78’.
2/9 h 17.00
Decalogo 7 – Non rubare
Krzysztof Kieslowski. Poland, 1988, 55’.
2/9 h 18.30/ 18/9 h 16.00
La fontana della vergine
Ingmar Bergman. Sweden, 1960, 89’.
3/9 h 16.00
La papessa
Sönke Wortmann. Germany / UK / Italy / Spain, 2009, 140’.
3/9 h 19.00
Parla con lei
Pedro Almodóvar. Spain, 2002, 112’.
4/9 h 16.00
Juno
Jason Reitman. Canada/USA, 2007, 96’.
4/9 h 19.00/ 15/9 h 17.00
Agora
Alejandro Amenábar. Spain, 2009, 126’.
5/9 h 16.00
Boyhood
Richard Linklater. USA, 2014, 165’.
6/9 h 15.00
Ponyo sulla scogliera
Hayao Miyazaki. Japan, 2008, 103’.
6/9 h 17.00
Barbarella
Roger Vadim. France/Italy, 1968, 98’.
6/9 h 19.00
Aelita
Jakov Protazanov. URSS, 1924, 113’, silent.
8/9 h 17.00
Frida, naturaleza viva
Paul Leduc. Mexico, 1986, 108’, o.v. sub. Ita.
8/9 h 19.00
Frida
Julie Taymor. USA/Canada, 2002, 118’.
9/9 h 17.00/ 24/9 h 17.00
Tutto su mia madre
Pedro Almodóvar. Spain, 1999, 104’.
9/9 h 19/ 12/9 h 16
Mommy
Xavier Dolan. France/Canada, 2014, 139’.
10/9 h 17.00
Medea
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Italy/Fr./RFT, 1969, col., 110’.
10/9 h 19.00
Sister
Ursula Meier. Switzerland/France, 2012, 97’.
13/9 h 15.00 and 17.00
Mia madre
Nanni Moretti. Italy/France/Germany, 2015, 106’.
16/9 h 17.00
Hungry Hearts
Saverio Costanzo. Italy, 2014, 109’.
17/9 h 17
Medea
Lars von Trier. Denmark, 1988, 76’.
23/9 h 15.00
Little Miss Sunshine
Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris. USA, 2006, 101’.
24/9 h 21
Closing Concert “Scene Madri”.
Musical accompaniment of scenes of popular short films starring the greatest actresses
of Italian film history.
SPAZIO OBERDAN (From September 25th to October 11th)
25/9 h 21.15/ 29/9 h 21.15/ 3/10 h 19.30
Chi ha paura di Vagina Wolf?
Anna Margherita Albello. USA, 2013, 83’.
26/9 h 17.00
Femmina folle
John M. Stahl. USA, 1945, 110’.
27/9 h 17
Psycho
A. Hitchock, USA, 1960, 109’
27/9 h 21
Germaine Dulac: La Mort du soleil (G. Dulac, France, 1921-22, 83’, silent); Autrefois…
aujourd’hui (G. Dulac, 1930, 7’, musical short film); Celles qui s’en font (G. Dulac,
France, 1930, 6’, musical short film); Ceux qui ne s’en font pas (G. Dulac, France, 1930,
6’, musical short movie); Un peu de rêve sur le foubourg (G. Dulac, France, 1930, 11’,
musical short film) total duration 113’
Musical accompaniment for the movie La Mort du soleil
30/9 h 17
Terra madre
Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 2009, 78’
1/10 h 19
Maya Deren: A Study In Choreography for the Camera; Ritual in Transfigured Time;
Meditation on Violence; The Very Eye of Night. USA, 50’.
2/10 h 21.15/ 4/10 h 17/ 7/10 h19/ 9/10 h 20.15/ 11/10 h 17
Goodnight Mommy
Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Austria, 2014, 99’.
Preview
3/10 h 15
Edipo Re
P.P.Pasolini, Italy, 1967, 119’.
4/10 h 21
J’ai tué ma mère
X. Dolan, Canada, 2009, 109’, v.o. sott. it.
5/10 h 17
La vie d’Adèle
A. Kechiche, Fr./Bel./Sp., 2013, 180’.
6/10 h 21
La madre
V. Pudovkin, URSS, 1926, 90.
La madre e la morte
A. Frusta, Italy, 1911, 11’.
Musical accompaniment: Sinestesia Ensemble di Gioventù Musicale d’Italia
8/10 h 21.10
The Garden of Heartly Delight
L. Majewski, UK/IT./Pol., 2004, 104’, v.o. sott. it.
10/10 h 19.15
Moloch
A. Sokurov, Russia/Ger./Fr., 1999, 102’.
11/10 h 21.15
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
R. Meyer, USA, 1965, 83’.
INFO:
T 02.87242114 / info@cinetecamilano.it / www.cinetecamilano.it
ENTRANCE FEE AT SPAZIO OBERDAN
Full price: € 7,00
Concession Ticket with Cinetessera and for students: € 5,50
First screening of the afternoon: full price € 5,50, concession € 3,50
ENTRANCE FEE AT MIC
Full price: € 5,50
Concession Ticket: € 4,00
1 adult + 1 child: € 6,00
PRESS OFFICE:
Fondazione Cineteca Italiana / Margherita Giusti Hazon
ufficiostampa@cinetecamilano.it – +39 340 3543419
A ticket for the exhibition at Palazzo Reale grants reduced admission to the
cinema, and a ticket for the cinema grants reduced admission to the exhibition.
LA GRANDE MADRE
EDUCATION SERVICES
The Great Mother, an exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni, promoted by Comune di Milano | Cultura,
conceived and produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi together with Palazzo Reale for ExpoinCittà 2015,
and realised with the support of BNL – BNP Paribas Group, main sponsor of the exhibition.
FOR SCHOOL GROUPS
Guided tours in English are tailored according to the age of students. For visitors aged 6-10 the tour focuses
mainly on emotional aspects. Children are encouraged to describe selected exhibits in their own words,
understanding how the theme of maternity is central in the history of humanity and across different cultures.
For students aged 11 and older tours draw connections also with other subjects in the curriculum such as
literature, science and history. The role of women is therefore analyzed with a broad approach, providing
students with stimuli for further reflection.
Duration > 75 minutes
Cost > €100,00 + exhibition ticket
Group size > up to 25 participants + 2 teachers with free entrance
FOR GROUPS OF ADULTS
Tours in English for adults take place once a month or upon request for groups. During the tours various
themes are discussed, ranging from the contribution of female artists in the early Avant-garde movements of
the 20° century to the evolution of female representation in the art.
Duration > 75 minutes
Cost > €130,00 + exhibition ticket
Group size > up to 25 participants + 1 chaperone/tour leader with free entrance
HOW TO BOOK
Online www.adartem.it | Tel +39 02 6597728 (lines are open Mon – Fri 9am-1pm and 2pm -4pm)
****
ABOUT AD ARTEM
Established in 1993 in Milan by a group of art historians, Ad Artem aims to promote the public understanding
of art and cultural heritage. The main focus of our activity is the provision of education services targeting
specifically schools and families with children but also groups of adults.
Thanks to this expertise, Ad Artem has become official provider of education services for the Sforza Castle
and the Museo del Novecento in Milan. Services available include guided tours to all the main museums and
temporary exhibitions, workshops and art-based summer courses for children. We organize about 6,000
activities per year reaching about 150,000 visitors.
www.adartem.it | mailing@adartem.it | Tel. 02 6597728
!
At#a#Glance#
#
Title:!! !
!
Curated!by:!!
!
Exhibition:!
!
The$Great$Mother!
!
Massimiliano!Gioni!
!
promoted!by!Comune!di!Milano!|!Cultura!!
conceived!and!produced!by!Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!!
in!partnership!with!Palazzo!Reale!!
for!ExpoinCittà!2015!
Period:!!!
!
August!26!–!November!15,!2015!
Location:!!
!
!
!
!
Palazzo!Reale!
Piazza!Duomo!12!–!20121!Milan,!Italy!
!
!
!
!
Opening!hours:!! !
Monday:!2:30!PM!–!7:30!PM!
Tuesday,!Wednesday,!Friday!and!Sunday:!9:30!AM!–!7:30!PM!
Thursday!and!Saturday:!9:30!AM!–!10:30!PM!
last!admission!one!hour!before!closing!
Admission:!!
full#price:#8#€#
reduced#price:#5#€#
[visitors! aged! 6! to! 26,! visitors! over! 65,! visitors! with! disabilities,!
Touring! Club! members! showing! card,! FAI! members! showing! card,!
visitors!showing!tickets!from!“Lunedì!Musei"!initiative!(Poldi!Pezzoli!/!
Museo!Teatro!alla!Scala),!off^duty!members!of!the!Italian!armed!forces!
or! law! enforcement,! teachers,! Musei! di! Milano! annual! cardholders,!
school!groups!of!all!kinds,!groups!of!15^25!people!directly!organized!by!
Touring! Club! or! FAI! (booking! fee! does! not! apply),! Comune! di! Milano!
employees!(showing!badge,!may!be!accompanied!by!one!guest!paying!
same! rate),! Italian! civil! service! volunteers! working! for! Comune! di!
Milano! (showing! ID! card),! Milano! Summer! School! participants,! BNL!
Paribas!employees,!Trussardi!employees,!and!other!special!categories]!
family#price:#adult#5#€#6#child#4#€#
[1!or!2!adults!+!children!(age!6!^!14)]!
free#admission:#complimentary#ticket#
[children! under! 6,! attendant! for! disabled! visitor! requiring!
accompaniment,!one!leader!and!one!guide!for!each!FAI!or!Touring!Club!
group,! Soprintendenza! ai! Beni! Architettonici! di! Milano! employees,!
journalists! (showing! Official! Press! badge),! ICOM! cardholders,! tourist!
guides!(showing!professional!certification!badge),!Palazzo!Reale!^!!
!
!
Servizio!Mostre!employees!(showing!ID),!members!of!the!Commissione!
di! Vigilanza! and! fire! department! (showing! special! card),! Ms.! Gemma!
Calabresi!and!Ms.!Licia!Pinelli!(entitled!to!lifetime!admission)]!
press#
[journalists! intending! to! report! on! the! exhibition! may! enter! free! of!
charge,!collecting!their!tickets!directly!at!the!“prenotati”!window,!after!
sending! a! request! to! the! exhibition! press! offices! that! specifies! the!
media!outlet!and!the!date!of!their!planned!visit.!Otherwide,!journalists!
are! admitted! at! the! reduced! rate! of! €5.00,! upon! presentation! of! an!
Official!Press!badge!with!this!year’s!stamp]!
!
!
!
!
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Info:!! !
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Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!
Piazza!Duse!4!–!20122!Milan,!Italy!
T:!+39!02!8068821!!
info@fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!
www.fondazionenicolatrussardi.com!
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www.lagrandemadre.org!
www.comune.milano.it/palazzoreale!
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Catalogue:!
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Skira!Editore!
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Graphic!design!
exhibition!&!catalogue:! Goto!Design,!New!York!
With!the!Patronage!of:! Ministero!dei!Beni!e!delle!Attività!Culturali!e!del!Turismo!
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Main!sponsor:! !
BNL!Gruppo!BNP!Paribas!
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With!the!technical!!
support!of:!
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With!the!technical!!
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Ufficio!Stampa!Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!
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Ufficio!Stampa!Fondazione!Nicola!Trussardi!|!Foreign!Press!
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Ufficio!stampa!Comune!di!Milano!
Elena!Conenna!
Palazzo!Reale!
Piazza!Duomo!14!–!20121!Milano!
elenamaria.conenna@comune.milano.it!
On!the!occasion!of!the!exhibition!The$Great$Mother,!MIC!–!Museo!Interattivo!del!Cinema!/!Fondazione!
Cineteca!Italiana,!Milan!has!developed!a!film!program!dedicated!to!the!theme!of!motherhood!and!of!
women’s!emancipation.!Between!August!25!and!October!11,!2015,!38!screenings!will!be!hosted!at!MIC!
and!Spazio!Oberdan,!Milan.!
!
Palazzo Reale is at the heart of an exhibition complex—also comprising Palazzo della Ragione and
PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea—that every year presents a rich cultural calendar
promoted by the Cultural Office of the City of Milan. With some 7000 sqm/75,000 sqf of total
exhibition space, it hosts an annual program of top-tier exhibitions featuring works of
extraordinary value, in addition to lectures, talks, debates and concerts. All the events are
organized and realized in collaboration with leading experts in art history and in partnership with
major Italian and international museums and cultural institutions.
In its galleries, which are fitted out for every show with sophisticated architectural designs,
Palazzo Reale has presented some of the greatest names in art: Picasso, the Impressionists,
Caravaggio, Boccioni, Kandinsky, Canova, Schiele, Monet, Tamara de Lempicka, Francis Bacon,
Bernardino Luini, Arcimboldo, Salvador Dalí, Chagall, Van Gogh, Segantini, Lombard Art from the
Viscontis to the Sforzas, Leonardo Da Vinci, and many other illustrious chapters in art history.
This multifaceted exhibition program attracts about one million, three hundred thousand visitors a
year, and has made Palazzo Reale accessible to everyone: a vast, loyal, international audience
that concretely demonstrates the cultural impact and success of the initiatives it proposes and the
quality of the services it offers, from educational programs for schools and bookshop visitors to
high-quality art publications and food service, with an outstanding café and buffet bar.
What sets Palazzo Reale apart from any neutral exhibition venue is the history of the building,
which is indissolubly linked to Milan’s own. Its origins are very ancient. It became the seat of city
government in the Late Middle Ages, and its role as a political center was only strengthened by
the advent of the Della Torre, Visconti, and Sforza families. Increasingly home to a sumptuous
court life as a theater for investitures and solemn receptions, in the second half of the eighteenth
century, under Habsburg rule, the palace was adorned with decorations inspired by Austrian
Baroque. Toward the end of that century it underwent the great neoclassical transformation
carried out by Giuseppe Piermarini: the palazzo acquired a grand staircase, an elegant facade
structured in Neoclassical style was overlaid on the previous one, and arrayed in this new attire,
the palace gazed out over Piazza Duomo. From then on it was home to sovereigns, from Maria
Teresa to Napoleon, from Ferdinand I to the Savoy kings of Italy. Renowned and admired
sculptors, painters, decorators, stucco artists and woodworkers of the time celebrated the glories
of kings and emperors, endowing it with magnificent artworks, paintings and furnishings.
In 1919 Palazzo Reale was given to the state by the kings of Italy and was partially opened to
visits by the public. Heavily damaged by the bombings of 1943, the palace lost many of its
treasures: entire rooms on the piano nobile were irreparably ruined and the great Salone Delle
Cariatidi lost its roof, its caryatids consumed by the fires, rain, and snow that followed the
bombing.
Over seventy years after the war, long and complex restoration and recovery projects have
restored to public view the halls from the neoclassical period and the twelve rooms of the former
Appartamento di Riserva. Today, the palace plays a central role in the cultural and social life of
Milan, as one of the leading exhibition spaces in the city and in the country.
Palazzo Reale
Piazza Duomo 12
20122 Milan
Comune di Milano | Cultura
Polo Mostre e Musei Scientifici
Open: Monday 2:30 PM – 7:30 PM.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday 9:30 AM – 7:30 PM.
Thursday and Saturday 9:30 AM –
10:30 PM.
Metro
MM1 and MM3 - Duomo
www.comune.milano.it/palazzoreale
!
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi is a non-profit institution for the promotion of contemporary art and culture,
founded in 1996 and granted official recognition by the Italian Ministry of the Interior (Gazzetta Ufficiale of
July 1, 1999, no. 64, vol. 140).
The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi is a nomadic museum committed to producing and presenting contemporary
art.
Since the fall of 2002, under the leadership of President Beatrice Trussardi and with the appointment of
curator Massimiliano Gioni as its Artistic Director, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi ventured into terrain
hitherto unexplored by any other institution in Italy; its primary mission being to produce works by
international artists and present contemporary art exhibitions and events in historic buildings and landmark
sites around Milan.
The Foundation brings contemporary art into the heart of the city. For each exhibition, the Foundation and
the artists it invites choose a new location which is rediscovered, reopened and utterly transfigured by the
energy of contemporary art.
The Foundation thus explores the art world of the present, but also provides a compass for scouting the
urban stage, by forging new partnerships with the city’s institutions, both inside and outside the realm of art.
Through its activity, the Foundation opens up a dialogue with the area, looking to the city as a wellspring of
inspiration waiting to be discovered, made up of art and culture, opportunities for exchange, ideas to foster,
and a storehouse of insights and creativity.
The Foundation channels its skills and resources into making the most innovative work in contemporary art
accessible to everyone.
The Fondazione Nicola Trussardi presents the public with the gift of art and culture, bringing it into every
facet of everyday life. The Foundation aspires to become a cultural institution that increasingly moves
between the public and private spheres, and is capable of expanding outside the boundaries of Milan.
All the works produced by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi live on at leading museums and cultural
institutions. The Foundation thus becomes an antenna that picks up signals from contemporary art and
broadcasts them to the public around the world.
!
Milan, August 25
th
2015
PRESS RELEASE
BNL MAIN SPONSOR OF “LA GRANDE MADRE” EXHIBITION
Palazzo Reale – Milan
th
August 26 - November 15
th
2015
BNL BNP Paribas Group is the main sponsor of “La Grande Madre”; curated by Massimiliano Gioni, promoted by
the City of Milan/Cultural Office, conceived and produced by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi together with
Palazzo Reale on the occasion of Expo 2015. The exhibition, which opens to the public from tomorrow through
th
November 15 , 2015, was presented today in a press conference at Palazzo Reale with: Filippo Del Corno,
Councilor for Culture, City of Milan; Beatrice Trussandi, President Fondazione Nicola Trussardi; Massimiliano
Giorni, Artist Director Fondazione Trussandi. For BNL intervened Anna Boccaccio, Head of Institutional Relations
BNL BPP Paribas Group.
The exhibition, through the art works of over one hundred international artists, explores the iconography and
representation of motherhood, also as a generating and creating power, in XX century art, from the avant-garde
movements to date. “La Grande Madre” follows an ideal common thread to link the feminine figure of the mother in
the history of art and epitomize the notion of “nutrition”, theme of Expo 2015.
BNL BNP Paribas Group decided to sponsor this important initiative as a further tangible sign of its commitment to
support and promote culture in its manifold facets, as a factor of growth and development both for the individual
and the community.
In this way, the Bank confirms its role as a company at the service of society, not only as an economic-financial
organization but also by actively promoting the diffusion of common values, a true collective heritage.
Moreover, on occasion of Expo Milano 2015, BNL aims at strengthening its relationship with the city and its
surroundings, also by supporting one of the most important artistic and cultural events on schedule. Milan is, in fact,
a significant hub for the Bank and BNP Paribas, where 3,700 employees of BNL and other companies of the Group
live and work.
Over the years, BNL has promoted several socio-cultural initiatives, related to the world of art in general and
photography in particular; hence, strengthening its interest in the development of contemporary art. An example is
the photo and video art exhibition ”the sea is my land. Artisti dal Mediterraneo”, conceived and produced by the
Bank to celebrate its centennial. The exhibition opened at the MAXXI Museum of Rome, and was greatly
appreciated by the public; later, in 2014, it was exhibited in the Triennale of Milan and, in March this year, a
selection of its photographic works landed in Bari, at the Building of the Province. Some works of “the sea is my
land” were acquired by the Bank to enrich its art collection.
Further to support contemporary art, BNL became partner of the seventh edition of the Triennale Design Museum
th
nd
(April 4 2014 – February 22 2015); this is the first museum of Italian design and is located at Palazzo dell’Arte,
home to the Triennale of Milan.
Moreover, the Bank has been main sponsor of MIA Fair for the last four years; promoting the “BNL BNP Paribas
Group Award”, a concrete acknowledgement awarded to the best artist by a jury of experts. The winner is selected
from those who present their work through art galleries. Every year the selected piece is acquired by the Bank to
expand its own collection.
BNL’s art collection consists of approximately 5,000 art works: from Roman age statues to masterpieces of classic
and modern art (Canaletto, Lotto, Corot, Monachesi, Spalmach, de Chirico, Savinio, Donghi, Mafai, Guttuso,
Morandi) as well as paintings, sculptures. engravings and photographic works,created by contemporary artists
(Mario Schifano, Giacinto Cerone, Claudio Verna, Maria Dompè, Mario Ceroli, Elisabetta Benassi, Adrian
Paci).
________________________________________
BNL has been in operation for over 100 years; it is one of the main Italian banking groups and one of the most famous brands in the country. With approximately
1,000 points-of-sale across the country – Branches, Private Centers, "Creo per l’Imprenditore" Business Centres, Corporate Centers and Public Administration - BNL
offers a wide range of products and services, from the most traditional to the most innovative, to meet the diverse needs of its customers (private individuals and
households, firms and Government institutions). Since 2006, BNL has become part of BNP Paribas Group; it operates in 75 countries and has over 185,000
employees; 145,000 employees are based in Europe where its operations – through retail banking – is concentrated in four domestic markets: Belgium, France, Italy
and Luxembourg. BNP Paribas holds key positions in two major sectors: Retail Banking & Services and Corporate & Institutional Banking.
Contacts: Media Relations BNL +39 06 4702.7209-15 - press.bnl@bnlmail.com
@BNL_PR
Company Profile
Media Contact:
Erica Nagel
Head of Corporate Communication - Aon Italia
02.45434630
erica.nagel@aon.it
Gruppo Aon
Aon è il Gruppo leader, in Italia e nel mondo, nel brokeraggio assicurativo e riassicurativo e nella consulenza aziendale per la
gestione delle Risorse Umane. Aon plc è quotata al NYSE ed ha il suo quartier generale a Londra.
Presente in oltre 120 paesi con più di 66.000 dipendenti, ha sviluppato un network globale dedicato alla gestione delle
tematiche assicurative di aziende multinazionali. Sin dalla sua formazione Aon plc ha avuto una crescita esponenziale e, ad
oggi, ha raggiunto un fatturato consolidato di oltre 12 miliardi di dollari. La sua leadership è testimoniata da riconoscimenti
internazionali e da Giugno 2010 Aon è sponsor ufficiale del Manchester United.
Aon Italia S.r.l. è la branch italiana di Aon Plc. Aon fornisce un servizio di eccellenza ai clienti che comprendono le grandi
imprese multinazionali (estere e italiane), le principali istituzioni finanziarie, gli Enti Pubblici e privati. Il Gruppo Aon in Italia è
consulente per la gestione dei rischi e dei programmi assicurativi di 28 Gruppi Italiani presenti nell’indice S&P40, di oltre 8.000
piccole medie imprese e di più di 700 enti/aziende della Pubblica Amministrazione. La società annovera clienti nel settore
finanziario, alimentare, automotive, chimico e farmaceutico, energia e petrolchimico, pubblica amministrazione e sanità,
grande distribuzione, marittimo e trasporti etc. Aon in Italia consta di una struttura di oltre 1.200 dipendenti con uffici situati in
23 città del territorio nazionale ed opera a fianco di aziende ed enti appartenenti ad ogni settore di attività, fornendo soluzioni
competitive e personalizzate grazie all’esperienza multisettoriale e alla competenza di professionisti altamente qualificati. La
conoscenza dei mercati locali, unita alla peculiarità dei programmi definiti e al coordinamento a livello internazionale, consente
di offrire la massima assistenza alle aziende di ogni settore e dimensione in tutti i paesi del mondo.
About Aon
Aon Italia è il gruppo leader italiano nel brokeraggio assicurativo e riassicurativo, nella consulenza nei servizi di Risk Management e nella
consulenza aziendale per la gestione delle risorse umane.
Il Gruppo è presente in Italia con 25 uffici e si avvale di oltre 1200 dipendenti per fornire alle PMI, ai grandi Gruppi industriali e finanziari e agli
Enti Pubblici soluzioni su misura per una adeguata gestione dei rischi.
Aon Italia è la branch italiana di Aon Plc, capogruppo quotata al NYSE che ha il suo quartiere generale a Londra ed è presente in più di 120
paesi con oltre 66.000 dipendenti. Aon, da sempre attenta all’innovazione nel dinamico mercato assicurativo, fornisce supporto e competenze
specifiche nella definizione delle strategie che consentono di gestire e controllare i diversi rischi aziendali.
Nel 2014 il Gruppo ha realizzato in Italia ricavi totali per oltre 185 milioni di euro e ha intermediato premi per oltre 2.2 miliardi di euro.
Aon Italia S.r.l.
Communication Department
Via A. Ponti, 8/10 – 20143 Milano
Tel: 02 45434630
Fax: 02 45463838
www.aon.it
Risk. Reinsurance. Human Resources.
Sky Arte HD
canali 120 e 400
THE TV CHANNEL DEDICATED TO ART IN ALL ITS FORMS:
FROM THEATRE TO CONTEMPORARY ART, FROM MUSIC TO DESIGN
SKY ARTE HD, the first Italian TV channel dedicated to art in all its forms, is visible to all Sky subscribers
(who have HD in their subscription) at channels 120 and 400.
Painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, theatre, design and all forms of artistic expression find
space within a single schedule dedicated to the art lovers, who have the opportunity to deepen their
interests, and to the curious who can get close to art in a new way through the major international
productions (Sky Arts, BBC, Channel 4, Arte, PBS, Sundance Channel) and the original productions of the
channel.
With a contemporary language, through a narrative approach and the contamination of genres, Sky Arte
HD takes you in a journey through the infinite resources of the world's artistic heritage, with special
attention to the extraordinary Italian tradition and our gifted artists. In just twenty months with 142
original productions and more than 160 hours produced/recorded, Sky Arte HD has promoted 45
cities in 17 regions and 200 different places of artistic interest, in addition to 100 cultural events
and more than 100 national artists. Moreover, through the “Calendario dell’arte” has given voice to more
than 3.500 cultural events all over the Italian territory. To continue the important work of promotion
of the national artistic heritage Sky Arts HD with 7 WONDERS has unveiled, and will unveil with the news
season on June 2015, the history of the most famous Italian monuments in the world with all the
perfection of details given by HD.
For the next months, Sky Arte HD still has big plans, including "The words that remain", an original
production with Stefano Accorsi, for the first time playing the role of presenter. Accorsi will travel through
time with artists, dancers, entrepreneurs and musicians, trying to bring out their memories and emotions
related to reading of the book that left a mark on their lives.
Sky Arte HD is also Media Partner of the exhibition La Grande Madre, curated by Massimiliano Gioni,
promoted by Comune di Milano | Cultura and produced by Fondazione Nicola Trussardi Palazzo Reale for
Expo in the city 2015. The channel will produce a special Extra Art about the exhibition. Sky Arte HD is also
in partnership with the major festivals, exhibitions and fairs and is media partner of Azienda Speciale
Palaexpo (Palazzo delle Esposizioni and Scuderie del Quirinale) and Museo MAXXI.
The channel has a strong presence on the web and social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram),
thanks to the website www.skyarte.it and Sky Go, the streaming service programme that allows you to see
Sky on PC and smartphones. The main contents of Sky Arte HD are also available on Sky on Demand.
Ufficio stampa Sky Arte HD
MN – Cristiana Zoni – cristiana.zoni@mnitalia.com Marilena D’Asdia – MN marilena.dasdia@mnitalia.com Tel 06.853763
Ufficio Stampa Sky – Isabella Ferilli isabella.ferilli@skytv.it Elena Basso elena.basso@skytv.it Tel 02.308015837
MAM AND FIOCCHI DI RISO:
SITAR COMPANY PROFILE
The “Happybimbo Division” of Sitar, through the brand Fiocchi di Riso, offers high quality
dermocosmetic and personal care products for baby, mum, and for all the family, thanks to the
system of production in monitored lots made by the “Laboratorio Cosmetico Artigianale” (Artisan
Cosmetic Lab).
The line of products branded Sitarclean, presents home detergents with an innovative
physiological/environmental impact thought with specific attention to baby’s necessities.
“Happybimbo” provides in Italy the brand MAM, one of the world leader brands in professional
infant care, and the products for the breastfeeding branded Fisiolact.
Established in 1998, Sitar was born from the willingness of few operators with a lot of experience in
the complementary medicine. Sitar is characterized by a wide research activity and the development
of new products, even inside its “Natural Division”.
Sitar steadily supports initiatives and organizations for social, cultural and educational progress
close to ethics, nature and environment.