Nedda Guidi was in conflict with the contemporary art world as a queer woman, a committed feminist, and an educator who chose to work with ceramics, which many considered a minor craft. Glazed in Sèvres blue, Modulare I (1968) captures a negotiation between geometric volumes and bodily forms. While made of four identical blocks, the work is as tall as a person, and its cut-out ruby- red sections anthropomorphise and gender the sculpture. Conversely, Otto B “Naturale-Artificiale” (1974) exemplifies her deployment of modularity. With millimetric precision, Guidi cast elements made of different impastos, each requiring unique cooking times and temperatures, which assemble in multiple formations. Showcasing her alchemical mastery of natural dying processes for clay, De-posizione (o De-positione) (1977) is made of a sequence of rectangular tassels in shades of blue. The work takes on two markers of patriarchal power: Catholicism, by referencing the Deposition of Christ; and language, by translating the gap she placed between the letters in the title to the work’s structure. De-posizione (o De-positione) was first exhibited in the spaces of the Cooperativa Beato Angelico in 1977, the pioneering feminist artist collective co-founded by Guidi the previous year.
This is the first time the work of Nedda Guidi is presented at Biennale Arte, in the Central Pavilion and at Forte Marghera.
—Sofia Gotti
