Abstract
Abstract: Re-examining her own writings on the 60-year career of artist Maria Lai, De Cecco outlines how her reading of the artist departs from existing accounts of her practice, and shows how the artist's own statements have played a prominent part. This article reconsiders some of her works in relation to key arguments about this artist's use of a "minor voice"; silences; craft; gender relations; and "non-logocentric" and "de-territorialized" thinking in contemporary sculpture. Works discussed include: I Pani di Maria Lai (her sculptures of babies made from bread) (1977); and her counter-monument in the village of Ulassai Legarsi alla Montagna /Tied to the Mountain (1981).
This article was translated from Italian by Stephen Piccolo.
Author: Emanuela De Cecco,art critic and curator, teaches Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture at the Faculty of Design and Arts, University of Bolzano/Bozen, Italy.