Carla Accardi

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Italian artist Carla Accardi’s (*1924) “Origine” was produced in 1976, when the artist dedicated an exhibition to Artemisia Gentileschi as part of the artists’ group “Rivolta feminile”. This 17th century painter became an important role model for the feminist concerns of the 1970s. In Accardi’s work, strips of transparent foil loosely attached to the wall are interspersed with several photographs from her life and that of her mother Vita Accardi. By displaying an ancestral portrait of her great-great-aunt, Accardi focuses the view onto the female ancestral line. The use of transparent foil establishes a connection between the flat wall and the space. Carla Accardi constantly sought to distance herself from two-dimensional painting. By aiming to extend the picture-plane, she managed to create a spatial dimension within her oeuvre…

In 1961, when Accardi joined the Continuitá group, she reintegrated color into her paintings and began painting on transparent sicofoil plastic instead of canvas. She showcased these new strategies at the 1964 Venice Biennale, where she was given her own room. By the mid-1960s, she was using these new materials sculpturally. Tenda (1965) and Triplice Tenda (1969) feature sheets of plastic assembled into a tent and covered with brightly colored brushstroke patterns. This phase of Accardi’s oeuvre, which was celebrated in the “Ambiente/Arte” section of the 1976 Venice Biennale, would prove influential for the Arte Povera [more] movement of the late 1960s and 1970s…