Ketty La Rocca was associated with the poesia visiva (visual poetry) movement and the avant-garde activities of the Florentine Gruppo 70 and began making subversive visual-verbal collages in the 1960s, cutting and pasting images together with short text clippings. One of La Rocca’s aims was to liberate the depiction of women from its contemporary context, both in patriarchal Italy of the 1960s and in the general flood of consumer imagery emanating from television, advertising, and the cinema. Her early collage works mimic and undermine the commercial imagery of the day. She presents texts in the style of advertising slogans, subverting their meaning through a play on words that draws out their ambiguities, and elaborates her ideas through the pairing of such texts with images drawn from popular magazines and newspapers. Qualcosa di Vecchio’ (Something Old) 1964-5 is a playful reference to the mini-skirt 'La liberty e' arrivata' (Freedom has arrived). Two similar works are included in the recent rehang of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Solo exhibitions this year include Kunsthalle Fribourg, Switzerland and group exhibitions include ‘She Bam Pow POP Wizz’, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC), Nice, FR, ‘Radio-Activity. Collective Approaches to Art and Politics’, Lenbachhaus, Munich, DE, and ‘Bizarre Silks, Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts, etc.’, Kunsthalle Basel.

Ketty La Rocca‘s works are included in major museum collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris, GAM Turin, Galleria d’Arte Nazionale, Rome, Centre of Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.