«I take images already formed, already seen by people for a long time, made dull by collective descriptions and I re-live them, with all the stereotypical concepts I have been labelled with, until, for me, they become something else, they become “that” image that goes beyond any possible coral reading of it».

Ketty La Rocca, 1975


The brief but intense artistic carrier of Ketty La Rocca, one of the protagonists of Italian Neo-avantgarde, is inspired by a constant reflection of communication and language, and is characterized by personal experimentation which makes her one of the first artists in Italy to adopt expressive techniques such as performances, installations, videotapes.

Ketty La Rocca was born and grew up in La Spezia; she moved to Florence in 1956, where she attended the electronic music classes of Pietro Grossi at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory. At the beginning of the 60s, after a short time spent working in a radiology studio, she became an elementary school teacher and, thanks to her friendship with Lelio Missoni (who used the pseudonym Camillo) and Eugenio Miccini, she came into contact with the scene of the Visual Poetry.

Between 1964 and 1965 she created collages combining photographic images with verbal elements which reveal, by applying an ironic gaze, the limits and the social and political stereotypes of the language used by the media, with particular attention to the condition of women. These first works were in line with the practices of the Gruppo 70. La Rocca took part in the activities of the group also with performances: Poesia e no [Poetry and no], at the Feltrinelli bookshop in Florence in 1966; Volantini sulla strada [Leaflets on the road] and La vita è un’altra cosa [Life is something else] in 1967 also in Florence, and with theoretical and poetical compositions. 

The artist’s research, inspired in particular by the writings of Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes, focused more and more on the ambiguity of linguistic codes: in her works on road signs, for instance, the symbols of the traffic code are combined and made to form new icons which go beyond the intrinsic message creating a provocative and unexpected effect.

In 1970 the artist held her first solo exhibits, in Modena and Bologna, where she displayed Lettere-Scultura [Letters-Sculpture] in black PVC, “alphabetic presences” which are freed from the “paralysing effect of bi-dimensionality” and are subject to a process of «externalization of the imagination, which now concretely occupies the world, as if to empty it of its language and replace it with another one that is constructed in its own image and likeness».

The need for “another” form of communication, more “authentic”, lead the artist to turn to the body’s gestuality and in the first place to the “language” of hands, which is the subject of the book In principio erat, presented in 1971 at the Galleria Flori, Florence. The pages of the book covered by images of hands (of the artist and of others) making various gestures; they are associated to sentences which make no sense translated into a deliberately imperfect English. To quote the words of Gillo Doflores from the introductory essay, the “speaking hands” of Ketty La Rocca focus on the importance of the «spontaneous gesture, which man has not learned from anyone […] and that constitutes – before spoken language, after and along with spoken language – the most singular and astounding, the most unique and authentic communicative quality of man».

In this field, La Rocca collaborated with Rai, the Italian national broadcasting company, in the creation of the programme Nuovi Alfabeti [New Alphabets] and also in the realization of Le Mani [Hands], an experimental programme for deaf-mute people. 

Hands are still at the centre of the videotape Appendice per una Supplica [Appendix to a plea], presented in 1972 at the Venice Biennial in the section “Performance and Videotape”, curated by Gerry Schum: the experience meant the appraisal of La Rocca’s work at an international level, and in the following years she exhibited in the most important Italian and international galleries. 

The relation between gesture and image is also addressed in the series Riduzioni [Reductions]: the profiles of figures in a photo, a postcard or an advertising affiche are traced graphically on paper by the artist – «an alienating and partial moment that already announces itself as historical, though unique» – also, written words which have no meaning are alternated with an insistent “you”. 

In Craniologie [Craniologies] Ketty La Rocca intervenes on the X-rays of her own cranium, that are “the mask of the man of today”, but also the “subconscious side” of the illness she suffers from: on these she superimposes photos printed on transparent sheets which show “encapsulated gestures” - an open hand, a finger, a fist – and the obsessive repetition of the word “you” which “devours” the image.

In 1975 she created Le mie parole, e tu? [My words, and you?] which was displayed at the Faculty of Architecture in Florence, at the Galleria Nuovi Strumenti in Brescia and at the Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome; it was the last performance before the artist’s death which occurred in Florence, February 7, 1976.