Verita Monselles

Verita Monselles (b. 1929, Buenos Aires) moved to Florence, where she began her photographic research aimed at analysing and denouncing stereotyped representations of the feminine. She took part in a series of important exhibitions curated by Romana Loda: Coazione a mostrare at the Palazzo Comunale in Ebrusco in 1974; Magmaat the Oldofredi Castle in Iseo in 1975; Altra Misura at Galleria Il Falconiere in Ancona in 1976; Il volto sinistro dell’arte in Florence in 1977.

Of the same year is the series dedicated to Pauline Borghese, the emblem of avant-garde feminist art: la Venere Contestatrice, who performs the ‘gesture of the vagina’, asserts women’s sexuality, freedom and right to political action. In the meantime, Monselles became the official photographer of the theatre company Magazzini Criminali (until 1982 called Il Carrozzone), composed of Federico Tiezzi, Sandro Lombardi and Marion d’Amburgo.

In the 1980s, she began working as a professional photographer in the field of fashion and advertising, while her art gained important recognition in Italy and abroad: in 1982, she was in Paris at the Centre Pompidou in the exhibition Sei Fotografe Italiane and in Naples with a solo show at the Maschio Angioino. In 1984, she took part in the exhibition 11 donne fotografe at the international photography fair in Cologne; in 1987, she exhibited in the cultural section of Sicof in Milan.