Giovanna Zapperi

Giovanna Zapperi
Period: 2013-2014
Profession: Art historian Giovanna Zapperi is professor of History and Theory of Art at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art in Bourges and associated researcher at the CEHTA/EHESS. Her dissertation, published with the title
L’artiste est une femme. La modernité de Marcel Duchamp (
The Artist is a Woman. The Modernity of Marcel Duchamp ) (PUF, 2012), was awarded the City of Paris Prize for Gender Studies. In 2007-2008, she was “Rudolf Arnheim” guest professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin and, in 2009, fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes. Her articles have been published in various anthologies, exhibition catalogues and journals («Art History», «Feminist Review», «Kritische Berichte», «Multitudes», «Oxford Art Journal», «Parachute», «Rue Descartes», «Studi Culturali»…). Together with Alessandra Gribaldo, she is the author of
Lo schermo del potere. Femminismo e regime della visibilità (
The Screen of Power. Feminism and the Regime of Visibility ) (Ombre Corte, 2012) and has recently edited and prefaced the French translation of Carla Lonzi’s,
Self-portrait (JRP Ringier, Paris, 2012). Giovanna Zapperi’s research project for Villa Medici focuses on Carla Lonzi, a central figure of 1970s Italian feminism, who was an innovative art critic during the 1960s. Ex-student of Roberto Longhi and author of a number of significant critical texts, Carla Lonzi invented an openly subjective style of art criticism, and her book
Autoritratto (1969), based on the transcription of interviews with artists is of crucial importance. The research of Giovanna Zapperi concentrates on the divergent  course Carla Lonzi took after abandoning art criticism for feminism, with the intent of investigating the relationship between creative practice and feminist commitment, placing them in the historical and artistic context of the 1960s and 1970s.