Paola Agosti in MAXXI Collectionscurated by Simona Antonacci

20 photographs retrace the work carried out by Paola Agosti. For decades, she has portrayed women in their own life context and across different continents, engaged in the attempt to establish a different social role and to propose a new cultural vision.

The photographs, purchased by the Museum in 2023, are taken from various photographic series that the artist has developed over time. Considered to be one of Italy’s leading photojournalists, as committed to social reportage as she is to current political events, Paola Agosti has long followed the feminist movement and the world of women in general: from women's claims for their rights to the struggle against gender violence, from denouncing domestic isolation to analysing factory work. This interest has always accompanied her in her work as an independent photographer, which has taken her on several trips to Europe, South America, the United States and Africa. Thus, here are some intense portraits taken in Argentina, images of work in a research centre in Cuba and a reportage dedicated to the farming world of Marsica. The focus also presents photographs later published in her books: Riprendiamoci la vita, a story through images of the irruption of women as social subjects on the Italian political scene in 1976, and La donna e la macchina dedicated to women at work in factories in
northern Italy between the early 1970s and the early 1980s.

The Fondazione Giorgio de Marchis Bonanni d’Ocre also pays homage to the photographer’s work with the exhibition Lisbona, la notte è finita! La Rivoluzione dei Garofani nelle fotografie di Paola Agosti (Lisbon, the night is over! The Carnation Revolution in Paola Agosti’s photographs), curated by Giorgio de Marchis and Pasquale Ruocco, from 23 October to 23 November.