Ketty La Rocca

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Ketty La Rocca

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Ketty La Rocca (1938–1976) ranks among the most important proponents of Conceptual and Body Art in Italy in the 1960s and 70s. Based on a visual poetry, she radically dealt with the sociopolitical limits of the meaning of language and image. A central aspect is the examination of the bodily gesture as an “original means of communication” that is not precoded by society. 

Ketty La Rocca‘s works are included in renowned collections such as the MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou Paris, GAM Turin; Galleria d’Arte Nazionale Rom, MoCA Los Angeles or Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. Currently her work is shown in a major solo exhibition at „Ketty La Rocca: You You“, the Estorick Collection of modern Italian Art,  London, UK. At present her work is included in „Channeling: body < image > viewer“, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago and „Pop Models - Women in European Pop Art“, MORE Museum, Gorssel, NL. Recently her work was shown at „Easy irony. Irony in Italian art between the 20th and 21st centuries“, Mambo–Museo d‘Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, IT, „Disruptions. Early Video Art in Europe“, FMAC – Collection d‘art contemporain Ville de Genève, Geneva, CHE, „Global Visual Poetry: transnational trajectories in Visual Poetry“, during the Vatican Art Week, Dicastero Vaticano, Rome, IT, „Arte Povera - The New Chapter“ at EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, FI (all 2025) and „Video on Screen: The Early Years in Europe“, Tate Gallery of Modern Art, London, UK (2024). Her works have been on view in institutions such as the Biennale di Venezia (1972), the Camden Arts Centre London (1972), Fotomuseum Winterthur (1987), the MoMA/PS1 New York (2007), the Albertina in Vienna (2012), Kunsthalle Schirn Frankfurt (2016), Kunstmuseum Krefeld (2016), La Virreina Barcelona (2017) or recently at Gallerie d’Arte Moderna Contemporanea Ferrara and MUSEION- Museo d‘arte moderna e contemporanea, Bolzano (2019), KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION, Düsseldorf and Kunsthalle Kiel (both 2021), MAMAC Nice, Kuns haus Graz, Le Bal/Jeu de Paume and Kunsthalle Hamburg (all 2022).