On the many lives and mediums of a postwar Italian artist-adventurer

Published on the occasion of her long-deserved retrospective at Muzeum Susch, this book testifies to the singular vision of Italian artist Laura Grisi (1939-2017) within contemporary art history. Born in Greece, educated in Paris and living between New York and Rome, where she died, Grisi spent long periods of her life in Africa, South America and Polynesia. This involvement with non-Western cultures indelibly marked her own search for a cosmic thinking. Although her work is often reduced to Pop art, Grisi always worked within the fundamental motif of the "journey"--from remote locations visited and documented, to the multiplicity of mediums used. Grisi embodied a stateless, nomadic female subject defying the politics of identity, the univocity of representation and the unidirectionality of time. Grisi's work spans from her avant-garde Variable Paintings of the mid-1960s and her 1970s pioneering environmental installations dealing with fog, wind and rain, to her conceptual photo-works of the 1980s.

Published on the occasion of her long-deserved retrospective organized by Muzeum Susch from June to December 2021, this book testifies to the singularity and innovative vision of Italian artist Laura Grisi within contemporary art history. Although her work has mostly been 'reduced' to Italian Pop art -- if not entirely overlooked -- from the outset Grisi worked beyond that category, pertinently intercepting various lines of international artistic research (Conceptual art, Optical art and Kinetic-Programmed art, Minimal art) and applying them in her own original synthesis. Within an activity whose fundamental motif is the 'journey' -- from remote locations visited and documented, to the multiplicity of mediums used -- Grisi embodies a stateless and nomadic female subject who defies the politics ofidentity, the univocity of representation, and the unidirectionality of time. The first comprehensive monograph dedicated to Laura Grisi.