curated by Paolo Pisanelli
in collaboration with the Lisetta Carmi Archive, Kunstschau, RTI Theutra Oasimed (Lecce) and Arte Contemporanea Picena (Ascoli Piceno)
*Lo sguardo di Lisetta* is a video portrait of Lisetta Carmi, recently interviewed in Cisternino by Paolo Pisanelli. In this video installation, the voice of the photographer – one of the leading figures in social photography in the second half of the twentieth century – alternates with the visual narrative of her photographs. Lisetta Carmi was one of the first artists to address gender identity in a radical way, and to do so during an extremely hostile period. When her photographs were collected in a book published by Essedì in Rome in 1972, bookshops refused to stock it. Carmi had begun photographing transsexuals in Genoa in 1965 and continued for seven years until the publication of her work, *I Travestiti*, which was destined to become a seminal document in the history of Italian photography. ‘Lo sguardo di Lisetta’ was made possible thanks to the collaboration with Giovanni Battista Martini, curator of the Lisetta Carmi Archive, alongside Kunstschau, RTI Theutra Oasimed (Lecce) and Arte Contemporanea Picena (Ascoli Piceno)
Lisetta Carmi
Lisetta Carmi (Genoa, 1924) was born into a middle-class family of Jewish origin and was consequently forced into exile in Switzerland at a very young age. After a long period devoted to music, Carmi abandoned her career as a pianist to devote herself to photography as a means of political engagement and personal inner exploration. Self-taught, she learnt the basics of the craft by working for three years as a stage photographer at the Duse Theatre in her home town. Her work in photography continued in Israel and Latin America, before she moved on to the East. Between 1962 and 1974, she travelled frequently to Sardinia, documenting the island’s social life through her photographs, particularly in Barbagia. In 1972, her book *I travestiti* was published, causing something of a scandal. On one of her trips to the East, she met Babaji; this encounter had a profound impact on her life and led her, in 1979, to found the Bhole Baba ashram in Cisternino, Puglia.
