Ketty La Rocca: you you

This autumn, the Estorick Collection presents the first UK museum exhibition dedicated to Ketty La Rocca (1938–1976), a trailblazing figure of Italian conceptual and feminist art. Though her career was cut short by her untimely death at the age of 38, La Rocca’s work has left a lasting impact, and this landmark exhibition brings her bold, witty and thought-provoking vision to a wider audience.

Born in La Spezia, La Rocca moved to Florence in 1956 where she began working with the avant-garde collective Gruppo 70. Her initial experiments included works of visual poetry and collages that explored the pervasive influence of the mass media on daily life, with a particular focus on gender issues and socio-political themes. During the early 1970s, she turned to an exploration of gesture, aiming to confront the limitations of patriarchal language structures and advocate for alternative – and arguably more meaningful – forms of communication.

The show provides a comprehensive overview of La Rocca’s artistic evolution and expressive range, featuring works of photography, video and sculpture in addition to examples of her celebrated Riduzioni (Reductions). Progressively deconstructing photographic imagery by means of handwriting and other mark making processes, these fascinating verbo visual works again explore different forms of communication and reflect on the relationship between the artist, the artwork and the viewer.

Resonant and urgent, La Rocca’s work feels remarkably contemporary, interrogating consumer culture and gender dynamics with clarity and force. Her work has garnered growing international acclaim in recent years, having been featured in a number of major exhibitions including the Venice Biennale, and can be found in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Centre Pompidou and the Uffizi.

The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of talks and workshops, as well as a fully illustrated publication featuring newly commissioned essays.