ДЖОРДЖИНИ МАРИНА (Римский Университет «Ла Сапиенца», Италия), ПАНЦЕРА АННА МАРИЯ (Министерство высшего образования и науки Италии, Италия). Женщины в искусстве: присутствие, традиционное повествование и историографические проблемы. Восприятие итальянских и славянских художниц в Италии и за рубежом
MARINA GIORGINI (SAPIENZA University of Rome, Italy), ANNA MARIA PANZERA (Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Italy). Women in Art: Presences, Traditional Narration and Historiographical Problems. The Reception of Italian and Slavic Female Artists in Italy and Abroad
Gender studies are one of the most important art history branches at least since 1971 when Linda Nochlin asked the famous question: ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’
This provocative question concealed a complex reality. Indeed, at that time, women had less opportunities than now to work and emerge in the art world, but simultaneously there were many records and works proving a strong female presence. The problem was, and in part still is, that this existence was not reported by historiographic sources and it needed to be investigated.
The situation has changed since then: the art world shows a growing number of established female artists, women can be found at higher academic and professional levels, the general public of art is itself often made of women. In recent years, there has been an increase of national and international exhibitions and ventures dedicated to women artists. Just to give the latest examples (2019/2020): the great travelling exhibition of Natalia Goncharova (London, Tate Modern — Florence, Palazzo Strozzi — Helsinki, Ateneum); Artemisia Gentileschi’s retrospective at National Gallery in London (postponed due to coronavirus — COVID-19); the choice of The Baltimore Museum of Art who has announced that it will only buy art from women in 2020; lastly more and more frequent publications trying to disclose women artists clouded by time.
Nonetheless, the historiographical problem still persists, particularly in Italy. Narration about female artists is often very incomplete; the sources are difficult to find and whole archives have been erased. It is no exaggeration to say that we are witness to a real deliberate obliteration. That's definitely the case of Futurist women artists in the first decades of the 20th century. The phenomenon concerns both Russian and Italian artists, in that period: in spite of many artists’ arrival from the East to the West, particularly to Italy, we don’t know much about those who were linked to Italian Futurism (instead we know enough about Slavic female artists in French or German avant-garde). Such names as Bohemian artist Rougena Zatkova are totally forgotten. Yet, she had an extraordinary life and laced relationships with the most prestigious personalities of her time (Ivan Mestrovic, Igor Stravinsky, Giacomo Balla, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti etc.). Moreover, she was deeply connected to Goncharova, as evidenced by two unknown gouache pieces painted by the Russian artist in 1916 as gifts for her friend Zatkova, discovered by Dr. Marina Giorgini and recently exhibited at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
None of these names appear in the latest academic textbooks published in Italy: the index of names is too often completely masculine. Such books as ”Women Artists of Italian Futurism”. Almost Lost to History by Bentivoglio/ Zoccoli published in 1997 in New York (in Italy published only eleven years later) are still not taken into consideration enough. On the other hand, the search for the reason of this is the main target of FEMM[E] — Arte eventualmente femminile (Rome, 2019), recently edited by Dr. Anna Maria Panzera.
Our presentation will focus on these topics, highlighting the heavy oblivion which still weighs on women artists, making difficult a fair judgment of their production.
женское искусство, историографические проблемы, футуризм, итальянский авангард, русский авангард, Наталья Гончарова, Рузена Заткова, художницы, гендерные исследования
women art, historiographical problems, Futurism, Italian avant-garde, Russian avant-garde, Natalia Goncharova, Ruzena Zatkova, female artists