Carla Lonzi

Carla Lonzi (6 March 1931, Florence - 2 August 1982, Milan) was an art critic and feminist activist best known for her work with Rivolta Femminile, a feminist collective created in 1970. Following the publication of Autoritratto [Self-portrait] in 1969, Lonzi published Manifesto di Rivolta femminile (1970), Sputiamo su Hegel. La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale e altri scritti (1974) and Taci, anzi parla. Diario di una femminista (1977). Due to her uncodified practice, she occupies a singular position within post-war Italian politics and art, and is a crucial figure of European feminism. (2021)

Publications

• Autoritratto, Bari: De Donato, 1969; new ed., intro. Laura Iamurri, Milan: et al., 2010. Collective reading (2013-2014), [1]. (Italian)
  • Autoportrait, trans. Marie-Ange Marie-Vigueur, ed. & pref. Giovanna Zapperi, Zurich: JRP Ringier, and Paris: L'Association des Amis de la Maison Rouge, Dec 2012, 232 pp. Preface. English trans. of Preface. (French)
  • Self-portrait, trans. Allison Grimaldi Donahue, afterw. Claire Fontaine, Brussels/London: Divided Publishing, Nov 2021, 364 pp. Publisher. Review: Lucia Farinati (Art Monthly). (English)

• Manifesto di Rivolta femminile, 1970; repr. in Lonzi, Sputiamo su Hegel, Milan, 1974, pp 11-18. Originally appeared as a manifesto on walls in Rome and Milan, date: July 1970. WP-IT. [2] (Italian)
  • "Manifesto Rivolta Femminile, 1970", in Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader, London: Blackwell, 1991, pp 37-40. (English)

• Sputiamo su Hegel. La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale, Milan: Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1974; repr., Milan: Gammalibri, 1982, 132 pp; new ed., postf. Maria Luisa Boccia, Milan: et al., 2010, 127 pp; repr., Milan: La Tartaruga, 2023. [3] (Italian)
  • Escupamos sobre Hegel y otros escritos, trans. Francesc Parcerisas, Buenos Aires: La Pléyade, 1975; repr., Barcelona: Anagrama, 1981, 107 pp; new ed., Madrid: Traficantes de Sueños, 2018, 119 pp. (Spanish)
  • trans., in Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader, eds. Paola Bono and Sandra Kemp, London: Blackwell, 1991, pp 40-59. [4] (English)
  • trans. Patricia Jagenlowicz Mills, in Feminist Interpretations of G. W. F. Hegel, ed. Patricia Jagentowicz Mills, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996, pp 275-298. Publisher. (English)
  • Crachons sur Hegel: une révolte féministe, Paris: Eterotopia, 2017, 101 pp. Review: Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod (Terrains/Théories). (French)
  • Nous crachons sur Hegel: écrits féministes, trans. & postf. Patrizia Atzei and Muriel Combes, Caen: Nous, 2023, 165 pp. Excerpt. Publisher. (French)

• Taci, anzi parla. Diario di una femminista [Shut up. Or rather, speak: Diary of a feminist], 2 vols. Milan: Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1978, 1309 pp, PDF/2; new ed., 2 vols., Milan: et al., 2010, 1056 pp. (Italian)

• Rapporti tra la scena e le arti figurative dalla fine dell’Ottocento, ed. Moreno Bucci, Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1995, xix+189+[35] pp. Text of a thesis presented in Florence in 1956. (Italian)

• Vai pure: Dialogo con Pietro Consagra, Milan: et al., 2011, 144 pp. [5] (Italian)

• Scritti sull'arte, eds. Lara Conte, Laura Iamurri, and Vanessa Martini, Milan: et al., 2012. (Italian)

• Feminism in Revolt: An Anthology, eds. Luisa Lorenza Corna and Jamila M. H. Mascat, trans. Luisa Lorenza Corna, Matthew Hyland and Cristina Viti, Seagull Books, Nov 2023, 312 pp. Collection of texts. Publisher. (English)

Literature

• Anna Jaquinta, Marta Lonzi, Vita di Carla Lonzi, Milan: Scritti di Rivolta Femminile, 1990. (Italian)

• Maria Luisa Boccia, L'io in rivolta. Vissuto e pensiero di Carla Lonzi, La Tartaruga, 1991, 211 pp. (Italian)

• Martina Corgnati, Artiste. Dall’Impressionismo al nuovo millennio, Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2004, pp 278-307. (Italian)

• Maria Antonietta Trasforini (ed.), Donne d’arte. Storie e generazioni, Rome: Meltemi, 2006. (Italian)

• Michela Baldini, "Le arti figurative all’Approdo. Carla Lonzi: un’allieva dissidente di Roberto Longhi", Italianistica 38:3, 2009, pp 115-131. (Italian)

• Judith Russi Kirshner, "Voices and Images of Italian Feminism", in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, ed. Connie Butler, Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2007, pp 384-399. (English)

• Fulvia Carnevale, "Sputiamo su Hegel", MAY, n. 4, 6/2010. (French)

• Lara Conte, Vinzia Fiorino, Vanessa Martini (eds.), Carla Lonzi: la duplice radicalità. Dalla critica miltante al femminismo di Rivolta, Pisa: ETS, 2011. (Italian)

• Claire Fontaine, "We Are All Clitoridian Women: Notes on Carla Lonzi’s Legacy", e-flux 47, Sep 2013. (English)

• Giovanna Zapperi, "Carla Lonzi: la creatività del femminismo", Studi Culturali 12:1, Apr 2015, pp 49-51. [6] (Italian)

• Laura Iamurri, Un margine che sfugge. Carla Lonzi e l’arte in Italia, 1955-1970, Quodlibet, 2016. (Italian)

• Giovanna Zapperi, "Challenging Feminist Art History. Carla Lonzi's Divergent Paths", in Feminism and Art History Now, eds. V. Horne and L. Perry, London: I.B. Tauris, 2017, pp 104-124. (English)

• Giovanna Zapperi, Carla Lonzi: un'arte della vita, DeriveApprodi, 2017, 320 pp. Publisher. Review: Valeria Venditti (Doppiozero). [7] (Italian)
  • Carla Lonzi: un art de la vie. Critique d'art et féminisme en Italie (1968-1981), trans. Christophe Degoutin, Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2019, 304 pp. Publisher. [8] (French)

• Ilse Lafer (ed.), Deculturalize, Bolzano: Museion, and Milan: Mousse, 2020, 352 pp. Exh. cat. Publisher. Publisher. Exhibition. Review: Maria Antonietta Trasforini (Critique d'art). (English)/(German)/(Italian)

• Carla Subrizi, La storia dell’arte dopo l’autocoscienza. A partire dal diario di Carla Lonzi, Lithos, 2020. (Italian)

• Francesco Ventrella, Giovanna Zapperi (eds.), Feminism and Art in Postwar Italy. The Legacy of Carla Lonzi, Bloomsbury, Oct 2020, 280 pp. Publisher. Review: Maria Antonietta Trasforini (Critique d'art). (English)

• Carla Subrizi, "Contradictions and the Re-Invention of One’s Own Role: The Publishing House Scritti di Rivolta Femminile in the Life/Work of Carla Lonzi", in Female Cultural Production in Modern Italy: Literature, Art and Intellectual History, eds. Sharon Hecker and Catherine Ramsey-Portolano, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, pp 247-261. [9] [10] (English)

• Annarosa Buttarelli, Carla Lonzi. Una filosofia della trasformazione, Feltrinelli, 2024. (Italian)

Links

• Doing Deculturalization, exhibition, Museion, Bolzano, 2019.
• Suite Rivolta Carla Lonzi's Feminism and the Art of Revolt, exhibition, Doclisboa, Museu da Eletricidade, Lisbon, 2015. Curated by Anna Daneri and Giovanna Zapperi. Review: Annalisa Rimmaudo (AWARE). [11]