THE RED MAN. On Goliarda Sapienza Imagery

Goliarda Sapienza is now recognized as one of the most important Italian authors, yet she was during her life forgotten and opposed by the literary and political environment. This project aims to give a representation of her mental universe, looking for images that could talk about her identity.

Goliarda Sapienza is now recognized as one of the most important Italian authors, yet she was during her life forgotten and opposed by the literary and political environment. Partisan, anarchist, anti-feminist but lover of women and precursor of gender issues, prepared for the heroism of the wartime but less at ease in the tranquility of the 80s, extreme to the point of ending up in jail for theft of jewelry; Italy was not ready to welcome such a contrasted figure.

At the time of her death in 1996, not even a page of her work was in bookstores.

Two years later, her husband Angelo Pellegrino, decided to publish “The art of joy” (600 pages) at his expense, activating a vital circuit that leaded to the publication of the book in France in 2005. Acclaimed as one of the masterpieces of the twentieth century, the book remained at the top of the charts for weeks and in 2008 Einaudi started publishing her whole work in Italy. Despite this success, Goliarda Sapienza remains, in my opinion, visually underestimated.

This project aims to give a representation of the imagery and mental universe of Goliarda Sapienza, looking for images that could talk about her identity, clarify her position and the visual strength of her writing.

“The Red Man” comes from an image of the Sapienza family archive: brothers and sisters and the same Goliarda at the age of 3, on the beach of Catania in 1927. One of the men is red colored with a childish trait, and on the back of the image is written Iuzza, the diminutive with which Goliarda was called in the family. Can we consider it a first trace of her individuality? Starting from this question, I decided to develop the project by going precisely to the places where Sapienza spent her childhood in Catania, her youth in Rome and Positano and her last years in Gaeta, to meet in various forms the visible and invisible traces of her presence.

I met Angelo Pellegrino, husband of Goliarda Sapienza, in their house in Rome, he gave me the access to their archive of images and we made together a map of her places. He's helping me during the development of the project, and I'm discovering at the same time the exceptionality of their relationship beyond time and death.

The project, started in December 2017, is ongoing.

A portfolio of the project has been published in August 2018 on M le Monde.