Suzanne Santoro (Brooklyn *1946. Lives in Rome)

Lovay Fine Arts dedicates its Liste Basel booth to the historical works of Suzanne Santoro created between 1971 and 1981—a period during which she was actively involved in the Italian separatist feminist collective Rivolta Femminile, alongside Carla Lonzi (1931–1982) and Carla Accardi (1924–2014).

A graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York, Suzanne Santoro relocated to Rome around 1969. Immersed in the city’s dense historical layers, she found a perfect field of research for her investigation into the representation—and erasure—of women’s bodies in art history. Her practice delved into how the female body and sex had been stylized, concealed, and marginalized across visual culture. In the decade represented in our booth (1971–1981), Suzanne Santoro engaged with the gendered structures of representation through texts, sculpture, photography, drawing, and historical research.

In 1971 she created a series of resin sculptures directly referring to fe­male anatomy and casted on her own body. These works function simultaneously as self-portraits and as tools of collective empowerment. Theys are important breaking points in the history of sculpture as they introduced a new perspective by changing the gaze on woman body.

The same year, she reworked a series of postcards (2 exhibited) depicting ancient female statuary—originally created by male artists and sold in institutional gift shops. Boldly signed with a golden Sharpie, these appropriated postcards reclaim authorship and subverts the dominent male gaze in art history. Prefiguring the strategies of the Pictures Generation, this gesture laid to one of her most significant bodies of work: the Black Mirrors.

Inspired by old lead mirrors found in Roman palazzos and museums, the Black Mirrors (7 exhibited) are made from Santoro’s own photographs, mounted on wood panels, then covered with resin and polished to a mirror-like finish. Dark and reflective, these powerful objects confront the viewer with the historical contradictions of female representation—simultaneously hyper-visible and silenced. The symbolism of the mirror compels the viewer to take part in the work and for what is shown and what is seen.

In 1976, Santoro co-founded the Cooperativa Beato Angelico, the first women-run art space in Rome—a groundbreaking initiative that provided a dedicated platform for female artistic expression. These young artists exhibited their own work but also sought to reclaim the legacy of those historically excluded from the art canon. Among its most significant contributions was one of the earliest exhibitions devoted to Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1656), a pioneering Baroque painter whose life and work had long been excluded from art history. By bringing attention to Gentileschi’s oeuvre, the cooperative played a crucial role in reshaping art historical narratives and asserting the importance of women’s contributions across centuries.

Lovay Fine Arts has previously dedicated three exhibitions to Suzanne Santoro’s later work from the 2000’s: at Paris Internationale 2024, in our Geneva gallery in January 2025, and at Conceptual Fine Arts in Milan in March 2025.