Ketty La Rocca
The lithograph in the collection belongs to the Riduzioni series, the principle of which is to develop the original photograph by creating one or more variations through the graphic schematisation of the image, where words are gradually transformed into abstract signs. The selection of the initial photographic image from which the sequence derives responds to the need to reclaim reality in its various aspects. In the subsequent elaborations, the artist covers the contours of the photographic image with ‘you’, ‘you’ or with nonsensical phrases, in a sort of automatic writing.
The brief but intense artistic career of Ketty La Rocca, one of the leading figures of the Italian Neo-Avant-Garde, was driven by a constant reflection on communication and language, characterised by a personal experimentation that led her to be among the first in Italy to engage with expressive techniques such as performance, installation, video and photography. Born and raised in La Spezia, she moved to Florence in 1956, where she attended courses in electronic music at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory. In the early 1960s, after a brief stint in a radiology practice, she devoted herself to teaching in primary schools and came into contact with the Visual Poetry scene, and in particular with Gruppo 70. She died aged 38 in Florence in 1976.