Until 16 May the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome will be hosting the exhibition Donna. Avanguardia Femminista negli anni '70 ("Woman: Feminist avant garde in the 70's"), displaying the works of the Vienna art collection Sammlung Verbund, curated by Gabriele Schor.

In the 1970's, when the feminist movement exploded across society, the art world was also heavily affected. Female artists began to produce art that denounced the patriarchal society, at the same time working to re-conquer the female identity, often centring their work around their bodies.
Not all female artists that worked around themes related to feminism declared themselves to be feminists, and vice versa not all actively feminist artists wanted to produce art that exclusively identified them with the issues of the new movement.
The expressive universe of Feminist Art is vast and multi-faceted, with blurred edges. As posited by Lucy Lippard, one of the first major exponents of feminist art, the biggest question at this point seems to be: what is feminist art?

The exhibition replies to this question with a thesis presented by Gabriele Schor, curator of the Collezione Verbund. Schor echoes the theory of Lawrence Alloway, who in 1976 spoke of the Feminist Avant Garde given the intention of female artists to change the existing social forms in art, as is typical of avant gardes. In support of her thesis on the avant garde, in the catalogue Schor underlines the two major new contributions made by the artists: those of offering an original female point of view in the history of visual arts, and stylistically and technically anticipating Post Modern Art.

The Verbund Collection of Vienna chooses just a handful of female artists, an example of what Schor refers to as the principle of depth over breadth, which aims to offer greatest scope for interaction and discussion between the artists.
The artists on show are Helena Almeida, Eleanor Antin, Renate Bertlmann, Valie Export, Birgit Jürgenssen, Leslie Labowitz, Suzanne Lacy, Suzy Lake, Ketty La Rocca, Ana Mendieta, Martha Rosler, Cindy Sherman, Annegret Soltau, Hannah Wilke, Martha Wilson, Francesca Woodman, Nil Yalter; both well established and up and coming artists. The majority of artists rely on photography and video (whose history is bereft of a traditional, secular male domination) rather than more traditional mediums such as painting or sculpture.

The exhibition also includes a nucleus of artists that have worked on issues more closely linked to militant feminism, replete with social accusations, through high impact works. Two names: Leslie Labowitz and Suzanne Lacy in Mourning and in Rage from 1978, the simulation of a funeral in honour of all female victims of violence and rape. Provocative and brutal are the best adjectives for the performance of Austrian artist Valie Export, who refuses to wear the clothes of a victim, instead arming herself with a submachine gun whilst exposing her genitals in Aktionshose:Genitalpanik (1969).
A pioneering artist in lambasting the lack of women's freedom in the Muslim culture is Turkey's Nil Yalter, present with the work La Femme sans Tete ou La Danse du Ventre. In the video, a belly dance conceals a practice still active in the 1970's rural Turkey: an imam would write phrases on the stomachs of infertile women and if he made a mistake he had the right to cancel the erroneous letters with his tongue.