
À JOUR
Curated by Marco Scotini, Francesca Verga, and Zasha Colah
Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano
6 December 2024 – 15 February 2025
With À JOUR, Ar/Ge Kunst is showing the first institutional exhibition on Clemen Parrocchetti (Milan 1923–2016), a rebellious and non-conformist artist who experienced the 1968 movement as the initial spark for a creative, political turnaround. During these years of passionate feminist struggles, the artist used the means and methods of domestic work to take a political stance on issues that were intensively discussed on a theoretical level within the movement, such as the subordinate role of women, abortion and divorce as tools of emancipation, domestic violence and sexual liberation.
The special position of housework in Parrocchetti’s works reflects the artist’s closeness to the Collettivo Internazionale Femminista, which was founded in Padua by theorists such as Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Leopoldina Fortunati. The collective’s numerous political actions included the international campaign in favour of paid housework. This was also a central concern of the Gruppo Immagine in Varese (Cibaldi, Gandini, Parrocchetti, Secol and Sironi), which Parrocchetti joined in 1978 and with which she took part in the Venice Biennale that same year.
The exhibition focuses primarily on Parrocchetti’s works from the 1970s. The French expression à jour , which gives the show its title, is a play on words and refers to an embroidery technique in which an openwork pattern is created by pulling out fabric threads – and thus a captivating openwork work. But mettre à jour also means making something visible and bringing it to light: in this case, the situation of women in their fight against patriarchal subordination. In addition, the openwork or hemstitch refers to the female work in the household, which is characterized by constant repetition, and to the work of overcoming obstacles that the artist has to overcome every day.

Clemen Parrocchetti, Installation view of À JOUR, Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano, 2024-2025


Clemen Parrocchetti, Liberazione / Liberation, 1974; Embroidery, harmonica, pins, paint and wood; 54.3 × 21 × 25 cm; Installation view of À JOUR, Ar/Ge Kunst, Bolzano, 2024-2025
















Photo by Tiberio Sorvillo