To form the informed. Autocoscienza in the visual language starting from Towards New Expression/ Per una espressione nuova by Suzanne Santoro
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2025.814.2947Keywords:
autocoscienza, image, body, obscenity, nudityAbstract
Autocoscienza was a key feminist practice in 1970s Italy. Based on Suzanne Santoro’s artist book Towards New Expression/ Per una espressione nuova (1974), this paper proposes that this practice can be traced not only through words, but also in visual language. Selected parts of this book are placed in constellation with feminist archival materials related to autocoscienza —such as magazines, fanzines and books—, as well as texts by Rivolta femminile, Marija Gimbutas, and Luce Irigaray, which inspired Santoro’s research and creative process. The visual language of the studied objects engages in a dialogue with the European tradition of representing the female nude. Santoro’s position is particular: on the one hand, she reveals what much of this tradition has concealed —the form of the female genitals—, without entirely breaking with it; on the other hand, she reformulates an archaic representation of the female sacred. In conclusion, the paper proposes to understand autocoscienza in visual language as a distancing from culturally internalized images of women. This occurs through procedures such as cropping, decontextualisation and recontextualisation of images, and the creation of new imagery.
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