Mariuccia Secol. Unraveling

This monograph is the first comprehensive study of Italian artist Mariuccia Secol (*1929), who redefined the boundaries of feminist art through powerful textile and sculptural works. Her practice evolved from abstract painting in the 1950s and 1960s to innovative fabric assemblages, installations with everyday materials, ceramics, and collages. Thematically, her works revolve around issues such as the subordinate role of women, domestic violence, and social exclusion. Using embroidery, fabric deconstructions, and household objects, Secol created textile artworks that symbolize wounds and resilience and intensively address the political and social problems of our time.

Mariuccia Secol was born in Castellanza (northern Italy) in 1929 and lives and works in Daverio near Milan. After completing her artistic training, she began exhibiting her work extensively and, in 1974, co-founded the feminist artist group Gruppo Feminist Immagine di Varese, with which she exhibited at the 1978 Venice Biennale. Today, her works are recognised worldwide and shown at important feminist art exhibitions, such as The Unexpected Subject: 1978 – Art and Feminism in Italy at the FM Centre for Contemporary Art in Milan and Cooking, Cleaning, Caring: Care Work in the Arts Since 1960 at the Josef Albers Museum Quadrat in Bottrop.