Eight years of investigation on feminism between exhibitions, projects, festivals, events, open-calls and the whole Carla Lonzi Archive digitized and available for consultation.

The National Gallery and Google Arts & Culture bring the whole Women Up program online, with 162 stories and over 16,000 images and videos.

At g.co/womenup  you can explore the collection of the National Gallery, the Carla Lonzi Archive and the new exhibition Io dico Io – I say I.

Women and the investigation of feminism still at the center of the activities of the National Gallery.

Women Up overturns the expression “woman up” and breaks apart the stereotype underlying the invitation to “act like a woman” by widening its perspectives.

Women Up is an action that gives a name to things, utilizes the founding power of language and reminds us that actions speak louder.

Women Up is a necessary and engaging obstacle race, whose projects, shows, voices, and data will emphasize the centrality of the female gaze and the National Gallery’s inquiry into feminism.

Women Up turns up the volume of the voices.

Ready?
Sisters and Brothers!
Pump up the volume
We gonna get ya!

Some interviews conducted through different districts of Rome were the starting point for making a simple but significant gesture in the museum

Where were we until June 2020?

In recent years, under the direction of Cristiana Collu, the National Gallery has constantly turned its attention to women and feminism, to its practices and tools of investigation and reflection, which have been the protagonists of the exhibition activity, of special projects, events and initiatives.

To mention but few: the Museum Beauty Contest (2016), the call for mobilization against the decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia (2017), the exhibition Corpo a corpo | Body To Body (2017) and #GIRLISTHENEWTIME the first female empty museum, the Accademie della Maestria femminile (2018), the Women Out of Joint festival (2018), the acquisition of the Archivio Carla Lonzi (2018), the open call After Hegel, who are we going to spit on? (2018) and Shut up. Or rather, speak (2020), inspired by Lonzi’s thought. And the exhibitions Giulia Napoleone. Realtà in equilibrio (2018), Marina Malabotti fotografa (2019) and Le opere e gli archivi: Mara Coccia e Daniela Ferraria (2020).

These are just some of the most significant stages that tell something about the commitment, attention and involvement of the National Gallery in igniting and feeding reflection on the meaning of feminism in our time.

June 2020: collections, acquisitions, exhibitions (numbers)

In 2020, research was conducted on the women artists of the National Gallery, through an analysis of the collections, acquisitions and temporary exhibitions. What emerged?

251 women artists, 10% of the total. 517 works and 26 countries of origin. 3 works by women artists acquired per year until 2014, which become 16 per year from 2015 to today. 20% of all works by women artists have entered the collection in the last eight years and in 2019 works by women artists represent 30% of total acquisitions.

In June 2020, Time is Out of Joint exhibits 17 female artists, 10% of the total. From 2016 to 2020, 1 in 4 solo exhibitions is dedicated to a woman, and in collective exhibitions the average female presence is 25% with even higher attendances in some exxhibition up to 100%.

This photograph clearly shows a transformation taking place and more changes are on the way.

Fatto da un’artista | Made by a woman artist

Fatto da un’artista | Made by a woman artist is a video project and a specific intervention on Time is Out of Joint. Some interviews conducted through different districts of Rome were the starting point for making a simple but significant gesture in the museum: next to 27 works on display, a label highlights in yellow a characteristic of the work that is visible, but often overlooked by the eye: the be made by a woman artist.

An action of immediate reading that aims to bring attention to the status of women in museums, as authors who define and define themselves in a work and not just as subjects represented by another eye.

Where are we going?

2020

In October 2020 Time is Out of Joint featured the inclusion of a significant number of works by woman artists from the collections of the National Gallery. The narratives of the exhibition – in which multiple possibilities of readings, trajectories and paths are intertwined – will see the presence of different works, voices and perspectives to intercept in new ways the assonances and short circuits that cross the exhibition path.

The museum also conducted a diagnostic and restoration campaign on the works of the woman artists in the collections, strengthening the study and enhancement of this heritage.

In December 2020 the “trilogy” linked to the thought of Carla Lonzi was completed, with an open call for audio contributions entitled Vai pure. The call refers to the recording of the dialogue between Carla Lonzi and the artist Pietro Consagra that will lead to the end of their sentimental relationship. By questioning Carla Lonzi’s legacy again, the Vai pure call wants to open forms of dialogue and sharing through the voice, exploring the intimate and powerful space of relationships.

2021

The themes of Women up find another important moment of comparison in March 2021 with Io dico Io – I say I,, the great exhibition curated by Cecilia Canziani, Lara Conte and Paola Ugolini which brings together over 40 Italian artists of different generations who in different historical and social contexts have told their own adventure of authenticity, returning their way of living in the world through a constellation of visions.

Io dico Io – I say I arises from the need to take the floor and speak in the first person, to affirm one’s own subjectivity, composing a single multitude, a multiplicity of I‘s that resonate with consonances and dissonances. The exhibition escapes any retrospective gaze and is in the present, looking at different and singular ways of embodying the instance of feminism. Conceived before the pandemic, Io dico Io – I say I has shown itself to be permeable to the time we have gone through, incorporating new reflections and productions of the artists involved, and enriching the exhibition with the winning videos of the call Taci. Anzi, parla and audio contributions from the Vai pure call.

In parallel with the exhibition, the Archivio Carla Lonzi will experience a new moment of activation, with a dedicated exhibition section. Since its acquisition in 2018, the archive has been the driving force of projects and research inside and outside the museum, allowing scholars and scholars to access a precious documentary material whose value is internationally recognized for the history of art and gender thinking.

Currently, the Archivio Carla Lonzi is digitized thanks to the support of Google Arts & Culture, and its heritage is available to everyone online, further expanding its dissemination and the possibilities for reading and interpretation.

In June 2021 the Salone Centrale hosted an exhibition by the Spanish architect Izaskun Chinchilla, who intervened in the museum space with an elaboration of the theoretical and spatial concept of the armillary sphere, a medieval model of the cosmos composed of a sphere with concentric rings used to teach the movement of the stars.

Through the spheres, the exhibition reflects on the philosophy and politics of material spaces, also investigating the characteristics of female architectural production. From the intimate to the public and social sphere, the project seeks to create a physical place associated with the problems that are changing the world in which women want to live.

Antonietta Raphaël. Through the Looking Glass, curated by Giorgia Calò and Alessandra Troncone, in collaboration with the Lithuanian Institute of Culture and the Embassy of Lithuania in Rome, explores the figure of Antonietta Raphaël (Kaunas 1895 – Rome 1975) – the Lithuanian- born artist who was a leading exponent of the Scuola romana – through paintings, sculptures and works on paper, accompanied by documents, family photographs, letters and pages from her diaries.

On December 2021, Galleria Nazionale opens an exhibition The Poetry of simplicity. Fashion and design according to Monica Bolzoni/Bianca e Blu dedicated to Monica Bolzoni and her landmark brand and performative space Bianca e Blu to detail her thirty-year experience as a fashion designer, with the aim of conceptually exploring the process that has inspired her vast creative experience.

The aims of her research are the archetypes of femininity, in accordance with her precise study of modular forms to arrive at the development of a contemporary, sophisticated and concise canon of elegance that celebrates the real female body.