Ketty La Rocca (born La Spezia 14 July 1938; died Firenze 7 February 1976) was one of the most important artists in the European art of the 1960s–1970s. She was a leading exponent of body art and poesia visiva movements.
She made her debut in the early 1960s as a poet, and a poet she remained until her death, even if in a broader sense. Beside the experience with concrete poetry, she produced, in line with the visual poetry of Gruppo 70, to which she belonged, her collages, a set of images and words taken from newspapers and magazines and recombined in critical forms.
Starting from the late 1960s and early 1970s, her research was concentrate on deep reflection on the universe of communication and, in so doing, she was a true pioneer in using most advanced techniques of her time, such as videotapes, installation and performance. In this period Ketty La Rocca made several sculptures in black plastic (PVC), reproducing single letters of the alphabet and punctuation mark (mainly comma), and various objects in metal and mirror.
Then, in her works, Ketty La Rocca developed the idea of a body-language, or of a body turned into language. She used men’s and women’s hands making elementary gestures. The fundamental steps in this direction were the publication of artist’s book "In principio erat" in 1971 (defined as one of the fundamental experiences of body art in Italy by Lea Vergine) and the video “Appendice per una supplica”, shown for the first time at the 1972 Biennale di Venezia.
The evolution of her work was the use of words written in a rapid cursive hand on the images of hand (see for example "Le mie parole e tu?", 1971). This was the common trait of two main series produced by Ketty La Rocca in the last years of her life: the "riduzioni" and the "craniologie". In the former works, she developed her signature body of work, and passage after passage, with a gradual transfiguration, the images dissolve — through the act of writing — to the point where they become pure abstraction. In the "craniologie" she used the word "you", written on the reproductions of x-rays of her skull, where the image of a hand of or a finger was superimposed on the cranial cavity. Ketty La Rocca constructed her own unique aesthetic language working with materials as different as the letters of the alphabet, hand gestures, x-rays of her own head, and the practice of automatic writing.
Over the last decades Ketty La Rocca works’ has gained widespread international acclaim. Several retrospectives have been organized in Italy, Europe and the United States, in public and private spaces, such as:
In 2007, some of her most important pieces have been shown at MOCA Los Angeles during the exhibition WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution. Recently one work has been acquired by Uffizi to be exhibited in the new wing (will be opened in 2011) of the Corridoio Vasariano.