Self-portrait - Carla Lonzi

The first English translation of renowned Italian feminist art historian Carla Lonzi.

Recorded and transcribed throughout the 1960s, Lonzi’s "Self-portrait" ruptures the narration of post-war modern art in Italy and beyond.
Artmaking struck Lonzi as an invitation to be together in a ‘humanly satisfying way’, and this experiment in art-historical writing is a testament to her belief. Lonzi abolishes the role of the critic, her own, seeking change over self-preservation by theorising against the act of theorising.
Transcribed interviews and conversations with Carlo Accardi, Getulio Alviani, Enrico Castellani, Pietro Consagna, Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Nigro, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Mimmo Rotella, Salvatore Scarpitta, Giulio Turcato, and Cy Twombly

"What personally attracts me to recording? It is a simple elementary fact: the ability to transform sounds into markings, into writing, to find a page that isn’t a written page, but it’s a page that … In the end, it’s like a chemical process, when there’s condensation … that from the sound it condenses into a sign, just like gas turns into liquid. I like this very much, I couldn’t tell you why … and I like to be able to read something that’s different from the usual things you read that are always products of cerebral efforts, which by now are so tiring just to think of. A person who sits at a table and puts down ideas, alone with herself and with this task of getting ideas down … it seems like such an unnatural effort to me, such a tiring exercise, for me who already feels neurotic and … yes, and the fury of all that"

Translation by Allison Grimaldi Donahue
Afterword by Claire Fontaine

Divided Publishing, 2022
English
Softcover, 364 pages
142mm x 218mm