Self-Portrait

02.09.2025

Carla Lonzi is a writer, poet, and art critic who contributed to dismantling the power dynamics between critic and artist. Her way of reflecting on art criticism finds its full expression in the volume Autoritratto (1969), where Lonzi engages with fourteen artists active in the 1960s: Carla Accardi, Getulio Alviani, Enrico Castellani, Pietro Consagra, Luciano Fabro, Lucio Fontana, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Nigro, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Mimmo Rotella, Salvatore Scarpitta, Giulio Turcato, and Cy Twombly.
The book stems from the collection and editing of conversations between her and the artists, recorded and freely rearranged by the author herself, so as to reproduce “a kind of convivium.” For Lonzi, the result is “real,” even though the conversations did not take place in a single time and place. In Autoritratto, Lonzi’s voice blends with that of the artists; the dialogue is equal, never judgmental or dominating. “Today one can be close to artists also by listening to them and then listening again (…). But how can you, after making such a gesture (…), go back to the old gesture .”
The volume is edited by Annarosa Buttarelli, philosopher and curator of the Carla Lonzi Archive at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome.
This book matters because Carla Lonzi, with Autoritratto, was revolutionary not only for art criticism but also for the practice of listening. Moreover, the volume contains reflections and revelations from some of the most important Italian artists of the 1960s, which every reader and collector will find a pleasure to discover.

Carla Lonzi, Autoritratto, La Tartaruga, 2024