On the occasion of the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) conference, themed “Cities at the Boundaries,” in Ostrava, Czech Republic from 4 to 7 September 2024, I delivered the paper, “Nell’Ambiente: Italian Women Artists Reimagining 1970s Urban Space,” as part of a panel titled, “Beyond the Boundary: Women in Urbanism,” convened Garyfallia Katsavounidou, Assistant Professor of Urban Design and Urban Planning, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and Olga Touloumi, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Bard College, USA.
Abstract:
The Italian feminist movement unfolded mainly on the stage of the country’s streets and piazzas, and Italian female artists took their practice into the urban sphere to challenge their gendered subjectivity and confront the patriarchy of the built environment. The Italian feminist movement in the 1970s, directly and indirectly, influenced how female artists operated in this socially dynamic moment, and the shift from the domestic to the public sphere as a space of agency was self-consciously radical. Arte Ambientale—a practice of creating sit-specific urban interventions—offered a way for women artists to structure their work in the urban environment, actualizing their feminist agendas.
This paper examined the work of several key figures working in 1970s Italy through an intersectional lens that encompasses feminism, Arte Ambientale, and urbanism. Specifically, feminist artist and curator Mirella Bentivoglio (1922–2017), who created two urban interventions Poesia all’Albero (Tree Poetry) and L’Ovo (Egg), on the occasion of the city-wide exhibition Gubbio ’76. These artworks pushed her beyond her artistic vocabulary of Visual Poetry into the urban space in productive ways. Additionally, this paper explored the work of Milvia Maglione (1934–2010), who was based between Milan and Paris, and Greek artist Chryssa Romanos (1931–2006), whose primary residence was in Paris but had many connections to Italy. They both participated in another urban exhibition, Arcevia, Comunità Esistenziale (Arcevia, Existential Community), 1973-1976, that sought to rethink the urban environment in light of the issues facing small provincial towns and cities in post-industrial Italy. Architects and artists came together to reimagine the city in this multi-year and multi-intersectional intervention. Maglione and Romanos not only address gender but also socio-political concerns. Together, these three artists practiced Arte Ambientale but have yet to be recognized for their contributions to both art historically and in the broader urban field.
Caption Image: Mirella Bentivoglio, Ovo di Gubbio, 1976. Reinstalled in the original location on the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s birth in 2022
Martina Tanga 