Art history - Medici Residency

Clara Bouveresse

Clara Bouveresse

12/06/2023 / 30/06/2023
Start of residency 12/06/2023
End of residency 30/06/2023

Clara Bouveresse is a professor of English studies at the University of Evry/Paris Saclay. She holds a doctorate in art history from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and has published Histoire de l’agence Magnum. L’art d’être photographe (Flammarion). In 2017, she was associate curator of Magnum Manifesto, the exhibition organised for the 70th anniversary of the cooperative by Clément Chéroux at the International Center of Photography in New York. In 2019, she curated the exhibition Unretouched Women. Eve Arnold, Abigail Heyman, Susan Meiselas, presented at the Rencontres de la Photographie festival in Arles, with a catalogue published by Actes Sud. With Isabella Seniuta and Guillaume Blanc, she curated in 2020-2021 the exhibition Gilles Caron. Un monde imparfait, with a catalogue published by Le Point du Jour. She is the author of three volumes devoted to women photographers in the Photo Poche collection (Actes Sud, Thames&Hudson, Contrasto, 2020) and of Photographies au saut du lit (to be published in 2023).

Project at Villa Medici:

“From New York to Rome. Feminism and photography in the work of Stephanie Oursler and Suzanne Santoro.”

This project focuses on two American artists who moved to Rome in the 1970s. Both participated in the creation of the Beato Angelico feminist cooperative and used photography, books and exhibitions to question gender-based violence and representations of women. Suzanne Santoro is known for Towards New Expression (1974), a book revealing the presence of female sexual forms in classical statuary. In 1976, Stephanie Oursler published Un Album di violenza, a photographic calendar tracing a year of violence against women based on press clippings. Their journey sheds new light on the exchanges between feminist and artistic movements on both sides of the Atlantic. It has a particular resonance in the recent period, when a new generation is taking up these issues. This research proposes to build a bridge between the narratives of feminism in the 1970s and those being played out today.

Portrait © Clara Bouveresse