Women and abstraction 1930-2000: 38 women artists tell the other half of the avant-garde in Como

From the pioneers of the 1930s to the up-and-comers of the 1990s: 38 women artists tell the story of the other half of the avant-garde that grappled with the theme of abstraction. They will do so in ASTRATTE. Women and Abstraction in Italy 1930-2000, an exhibition organized from March 19 to May 29, 2022 by the Municipality of Como and curated by Elena Di Raddo, to recount some long neglected or forgotten protagonists of Italianabstract art who, thanks to critical activity particularly in the last two decades, are returning to the center of attention.

In fact, the history of abstract art, in Italy as in the rest of Europe, is a substantially male history, unhinged for the first time in 1980 by the important exhibition L’altra metà dell’avanguardia, curated by Lea Vergine, which for the first time, brought to light women forgotten by the history of art’art, including a number of women artists who were part of the Como group of abstractionists, the same ones who were chronicled in the major exhibitions Elles font l’abstraction at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Women in Ab straction at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

ASTRATTE. Women and Abstraction in Italy 1930-2000 starts with those same women artists from Como, then widens the focus to other protagonists of Italian art from the 1930s to the early 2000s, years in which the investigation of abstraction declined into groups and trends including geometric abstraction, informal, analytical painting and post-pictorial abstraction. Carla Accardi, Luisa Albertini, Carla Badiali, Marion Baruch, Irma Blank, Gabriella Benedini, Mirella Bentivoglio, Renata Boero, Alessandra Bonelli, Alice Cattaneo, Cordelia Cattaneo, Giannina Censi, Chung Eun-Mo, Sonia Costantini, Dadamaino, Betty Danon, Paola Di Bello, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Lia Drei, Nathalie du Pasquier, Fernanda Fedi, Franca Ghitti, Maria Lai, Bice Lazzari, Nataly Maier, Carmengloria Morales, Maria Morganti, Lucia Pescador, Claudia Peill, Tilde Poli, Carla Prina, Carol Rama, Regina (Regina Cassolo Bracchi), Mirella Saluzzo, Fausta Squatriti, Eva Sørensen, Grazia Varisco, and Nanda Vigo are the protagonists of the exhibition itinerary marked by thematic areas that highlight the different declinations, modes and lines of research in which aniconic art expresses itself.

It starts with the Pioneers: Carla Badiali, Cordelia Cattaneo, Giannina Censi, Bice Lazzari, Regina and Carla Prina, many of whom had a close connection with the city of Como, a unique place in Italy for abstract art thanks to the presence and dialogue of painting with rationalist architecture, but also to the presence of the Institute of Setificio and the practice of drawing for fabric, an experimental and modern language such as photography, dance, and cinema. In this section a focus is devoted to Regina’s first abstract works, presented in 1936 at the Mostra di Scenografia Cinematografica set up precisely at Villa Olmo.

In the Sign/Writing section, works from the early 1950s by Carla Accardi, Irma Blank and Betty Danon define a new path to abstraction, centered on the free flow of forms in the artist’s mental space. These were years of renewal and rethinking of languages, those of the Milanese exhibition Abstract and Concrete Art held at Palazzo Reale (1947) to which Rome responded with the birth of Gruppo Forma, which had Accardi as its only female member.

Geometrie includes works by Nathalie du Pasquier, Chung Eun-Mo, Fernanda Fedi, Tilde Poli, Carol Rama and Fausta Squatriti, artists who in the sign of geometry renewed the very research of the historical avant-garde by building worlds based on mathematical laws.

The section Materia, is dedicated to the abstract investigation linked to the exploration of materials: the works of Luisa Albertini, Marion Baruch, Renata Boero, Gabriella Benedini, and Mirella Saluzzo recount research on pigments, on the materials of traditional sculpture, as well as on more modern ones such as steel and natural materials.

In Meditation/Concept, the works of Mirella Bentivoglio, Alessandra Bonelli, Franca Ghitti, Maria Lai, Lucia Pescador, and Claudia Peill manifest how at the end of the 1970s there was a need to reflect on the legacy of the avant-garde and the consequences of those early experimental forms on modern language; the artists engage in dialogue with art history and define new lines of research.

In the Body/Action/Re-Action section, the works of Carmengloria Morales and Maria Morganti tell us how, following the affirmation of the idea of the open work in the late 1960s, painting also experiments with new modes of realization; for some women artists, a link is created between the physical act of painting and their own bodies, and the painting becomes the result of an action or process.

The last part of the Space/Light itinerary, on the other hand, is the area dedicated to the post-World War II period, when modernity is one of the most characteristic aspects of abstraction research. Here we find works by Alice Cattaneo, Sonia Costantini, Dadamaino, Paola Di Bello, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Lia Drei, Nataly Maier, Eva Sørensen, Grazia Varisco, and Nanda Vigo, who stand out for their use of new materials, such as glass or neon, and, even in painting, for their investigation of the perceptual and participatory dimension of art.

ASTRATTE. Women and Abstraction in Italy 1930-2000 aims to bring attention to these protagonists of Italian art, a small but significant nucleus of women’s contribution to the contemporary art world, in a city that already in the 1930s had seen the emergence around the figure of the rationalist architect Giuseppe Terragni of a coterie of artists who, together with the Milan-based Milione group, constituted at the time the only true center of Italian abstract research. The Villa Olmo exhibition will also have an appendix in the Pinacoteca civica, where, during the same period, a luminous work in crystals, mirrors and neon by Nanda Vigo, on loan from the Nanda Vigo Archive in Milan, will be exhibited. The work will be presented in Campo quadro, a space on the main floor of the Pinacoteca dedicated to temporary projects. The Pinacoteca preserves and conserves works of Como Abstractism, including Badiali and Prina, a selection of which will be on display at Villa Olmo, while a nucleus from museum deposits will be exhibited in the Pinacoteca’s Novecento museum rooms. The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalog published by Antiga Edizioni, edited by Elena Di Raddo, with texts and critical essays by Elena Di Raddo, Cristina Casero and Ginevra Addis.

“Villa Olmo is hosting a new high-profile exhibition, which will be very special, all female: these women, these abstractionists who will speak to us through their works, represent an example of an artistic group that has made an important contribution to the modern and contemporary scene. With ”Astratte“ artists from Como, such as Carla Prina and Carla Badiali, will be highlighted, expanding the scenario to the whole of Italy. I express my sincere gratitude to the President of the Culture Commission Dr. Francesco Brenna to whom we must acknowledge the primogeniture of the prestigious review, as well as an important contribution in defining the contents,” says Como Mayor Mario Landriscina.

“It is an honor to close my experience as Cultural Councillor with a major exhibition organized by the Municipality of Como whose subject matter is abstractionism and women. I cannot fail to mention, alongside these great artists and great women, the office that supports me, which is largely made up of women, and I thank the offices and the citizenry for how I have been supported in this short term of office,” says Culture Councillor Livia Cioffi.

Pictured: Tilde Poli, Composition (1982). Photo by Aldo Monti

Women and abstraction 1930-2000: 38 women artists tell the other half of the avant-garde in Como

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