I believe in the gift of instinct that finds expression in the magical sense of the work.
Carla Accardi was born in Trapani on 9th October 1924.
Accardi studied art in high school, and later went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo, where she met Antonio Sanfilippo. In 1946 she moved to Rome, where the following year she became the only woman to sign the Forma 1 manifesto. These artists aimed to reconcile Marxist and formalist political views through abstract and realist art, with each of the participants developing a personal language over time. Accardi’s language is characterised by a feminist vein which, through the creation of new enigmatic signs, aims to disrupt the association between delicacy and the feminine in art, as well as to criticize the patriarchal tradition of the Western world.
Forma 1’s first exhibition occurred in Rome in 1947, and Accardi’s first solo show soon followed, in 1950 at the Galleria Age d’or, Rome, with her early paintings consisting of interlocking black and white geometric forms.
At the base of Accardi’s research there is continuous experimentation: in the 1960s she reintegrated colour and began painting on sicofoil, a transparent plastic, instead of canvas, which lead her to her first experiments of installation art. Examples of such, are the well-known Tenda (1965-66) and Ambiente Arancio (1966-68).
In 1964 she participated for the first time in the Venice Biennale, later returning for several following editions. In the 1980s, Accardi returned to the canvas, using it as support for large and colourful signs and in 1994 she took part in the historical review on Italian art “The Italian Metamorphosis 1943-1968” at the Guggenheim in New York.
In 1996 she became a member of the Brera Academy and the following year she was proclaimed advisor to the Commission for the Venice Biennale. In the early 2000s, Accardi was dedicated solo exhibitions by important Italian and foreign institutions, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2002 and the MACRO in Rome in 2004. Numerous museums have Accardi’s works in their collections, such as: Guggenheim in New York and Venice, Centre Pompidou in Paris, MAMbo in Bologna and GAM in Turin.
Carla Accardi passed away in Rome on 23 February 2014.
Photo: “Gruppo Forma 1”: Pietro Consagra, Mino Guerrini, Ugo Attardi, Carla Accardi, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo e Piero Dorazio (Roma, 1947)
Sources:
Fonti: Germano Celant, Carla Accardi, Silvana Editoriale, Zerynthia 2011
