MAY 26
The Centro Pecci in Prato presents Verita Monselles. CARNALE, the first exhibition in an Italian contemporary art centre dedicated to artist and photographer Verita Monselles (1929-2004), whose work explores visual languages connected to the female and feminist thought through fashion, portraiture and the nude. Curated by Alessandra Acocella, Michele Bertolino and Monica Gallai, the exhibition runs from 31 May to 30 August.
Verita Monselles (Buenos Aires 1929– Florence 2004) used photography to reclaim herself and female subjectivity. She employed it as a mechanism to break free from the dominant culture’s stereotypical images of women as objects in media and advertising. Monselles’ work is often subtly ironic and metaphorical, as she intervenes and dismantles the symbols of patriarchal and religious tradition. Monselles often documented her colleagues’ performances or involved them in her work, for example, Tomaso Binga and Marion D’Amburgo are the models in her photographic series Ecce Homo.
Her work reflects a sense of sisterhood and mirroring. Monselles was the photographer for the Florentine theater company Il Carrozzone (later Magazzini Criminali) and carried out editorial projects for fashion with the aim of reinterpreting the role of women in contemporary society. Her photographic language reflects these influences: at times, it is baroque and reminiscent of theatrical staging and her time living in Naples. At other times, it is pop and captivating. At other times, it is glossy, elegant, and sensual, linked to the aesthetics of advertising. Monselles portrays a female body that is political, manifest, and that desires a sensual and sexualized body that is not shy but rather the author of its own desire.
