150 works by more than 60 Italian women photographers from 1965 until today: with RESISTANCE & SENSIBILITY the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt presents themes, techniques and aesthetic developments of contemporary photography – and an undiscovered treasure of photographic art made by women.
Frankfurt am Main, 30.01.2020 – Five decades of photography, as seen from a female perspective: with RESISTANCE & SENSIBILITY, the Fotografie Forum Frankfurt presents 150 works by more than 60 Italian women photographers from 1965 until today. Various facets of daily routines, social and contemporary history are on display, mainly with a focus on women’s lives. Hopes and illusions, relationships, struggles and going beyond borders are just some of the aspects addressed.
All works are part of the Collezione Donata Pizzi. The collection, begun in 2014 by the Italian photographer and collector Donata Pizzi, is one of the few collections worldwide with works exclusively by women artists. It currently comprises more than 250 works by 70 Italian photo- graphers of different generations and is constantly growing.
True to the collection, RESISTANCE & SENSIBILITY also presents important phases and themes in recent Italian photography. Many of the early works in the exhibition are in the documentary and storytelling tradition. These include Letizia Battaglia’s sometimes shocking testimonies to the deeds of the Sicilian Mafia, Paola Agosti’s touching black-and-white descriptions of rural poverty in northern Italy, and Giovanna Borgese’s journalistic representation of women from the left-wing extremist terrorist group “Prima Linea”. Seldom shown until recently: Lisetta Carmi’s sensitive pictures of the transvestite community in Genoa from 1965 onwards.
The exhibition focuses on positions of feminism and the questioning of clichés of the typically female. Agnese De Donato, co-founder of the feminist magazine “Effe”, ironized the theme of sexism in the 1970s by staging a half-naked male model. In her self-portrait, filmmaker Adriana Monti is experimentally facing her shadow. In 1974, Paola Mattioli sets photos of demonstrating women in a powder box belonging to her mother. Anyone looking into the mirror of the box is confronted with the title of the work: Cosa ne pensi del movimento femminista? What do you think of the feminist movement?
Especially photographs by younger artists deal with questions of role and identity. Anna Di Prospero, for example, poetically merges childhood and adulthood, yesterday and today in her Self Portrait with my Mother (2011). Simona Ghizzoni provides very personal insights into the theme of anorexia. Alba Zari uses self-portraits and image recognition software in search of her biological father.
What the works in the exhibition have in common is “the fresh and participating gaze” of the photographers, which Donata Pizzi defines as the constituent element of her collection. Thus RESISTANCE & SENSIBILITY displays a trove of contemporary female photographic art – taking Italy as an example. And invites one to a dialogue about what female artists were creating at the same time in other countries.
The special program on the opening weekend, will include workshops with award-winning female artists from the show, lectures and guided tours, among others with collector founder Donata Pizzi. RESISTANCE & SENSIBILITY is generously supported by the Department of Women’s Affairs of the City of Frankfurt and the “Feith Stiftung”.
Resistance & Sensibility
Collezione Donata Pizzi : Women Photographers From Italy
February 1st – April 26, 2020
Fotografie Forum Frankfurt
