Carla Lonzi (b. 1931, Florence; d. 1982, Milan) was an art critic and feminist activist best known for her work with Rivolta Femminile, a feminist collective created in 1970. Following the publication of Autoritratto ('Self-portrait') in 1969, Lonzi published Manifesto di Rivolta femminile (1970), Sputiamo su Hegel. La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale e altri scritti (1974) and Taci, anzi parla. Diario di una femminista (1977). Due to her uncodified practice, she occupies a singular position within post-war Italian politics and art, and is a crucial figure of European feminism.
Self-portraittrans. Allison Grimaldi Donahue
£ 13.99
Self-portrait
Carla Lonzi
trans. Allison Grimaldi Donahue
Recorded and transcribed throughout the 1960s, Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait ruptures the narration of post-war modern art in Italy and beyond. Artmaking struck Lonzi as an invitation to be together in a ‘humanly satisfying way’, and this experiment in art-historical writing is a testament to her belief. Lonzi abolishes the role of the critic, her own, seeking change over self-preservation by theorising against the act of theorising.
Afterword by Claire Fontaine.
Shortlisted for the 2022 ALTA Italian Prose in Translation Award.
- 978-1-9164250-8-8
- 105 b&w illustrations
- 21.6 x 13.9 cm
- 364 pp.
- Paperback
- 15 November 2021
About the author
About the translator
Allison Grimaldi Donahue (b. 1984, Middletown, Connecticut) is the author of Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2016) and the co-author of On Endings (Delere Press, 2019). Her writing and translations have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Words without Borders, Flash Art, BOMB, NERO and Tripwire, and her performances have been presented in Italy at Gavin Brown's enterprise, MAMbo, MACRO and Short Theatre. She is a 2021–22 resident of Sommerakademie Paul Klee, Bern. She lives in Bologna.
Endorsements (1)
Before she spurred everyone to spit on Hegel, Carla Lonzi arranged her Self-portrait in the form of a dialogue recorded with friends – artists – with whom she had been in conversation for years. She wanted to feel less alienated, to figure out a way for art to be a part of living, not a stupid contrivance to be consumed. Soon after the book was published, in order to continue to ‘live life in a creative way, not in obedience with the models that society proposes over and over’, she abandoned art criticism, but not art – and never life.
Press (13)
Carla Lonzi's Self-Portrait, with Allison Grimaldi Donahue and Giulia Crispianirile* books podcast09/07/2022
A Sense of Exclusion: An Excerpt from Carla Lonzi’s Autoritratto (Self-Portrait)Los Angeles Review of Books13/03/2020
Bourgeois Coldness
£ 13.99
Pre order in rile* books
Bourgeois Coldnesstrans. Grace Nissan
£ 13.99
Bourgeois Coldness
Henrike Kohpeiß
trans. Grace Nissan
Bourgeois coldness refers to an affective strategy that offers an explanation for how self-preservation works. Bourgeois coldness is one of the most advanced affective and aesthetic forms of preserving the structure of the colonial status quo. It creates an affective shelter in the world, unencroached upon by the immediate consequences of its many catastrophes. It functions like air conditioning – a complex technology which reliably stabilises the climate until those inside consider it natural. Bourgeois spaces – institutional and affective – stay cool and pleasant. But outside it’s burning.
Canonical critical theory by Adorno and Horkheimer enters a dialogue with Black studies through Hartman and Moten.
- 978-1-7395161-2-3
- 21.6 x 13.9 cm
- 280 pp.
- Paperback
- September 2025
About the author
Henrike Kohpeiß is a philosopher in Berlin, working on social and political philosophy, critical theory, affect studies, Black studies and feminist philosophy. She regularly publishes work in academic journals and criticism in magazines. She organises and hosts events in Berlin, such as the conversation series ‘Feelings at the end of the world’ at Volksbühne. Bourgeois Coldness is her first book, and was published in German in 2023 by Campus Verlag.
About the translator
Grace Nissan is the author of The Utopians (Ugly Duckling Presse) and The City Is Lush With / Obstructed Views (DoubleCross Press), as well as the translator of War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets (New Directions) and kochanie, today i bought bread by Uljana Wolf (World Poetry Books). Their translations of Yevgenia Belorusets were presented in the 59th Venice Biennale, as well as in the accompanying publication In the Face Of War (Isolarii). They are the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Translation Fellowship to translate the Austrian poet Ann Cotten’s Banned! An Epic Poem into English.
Endorsements (2)
Foregrounding affect, this timely book provides an inestimable philosophical argument for the centrality of Blackness in critical examinations of capitalism’s violence.
Elegant and erudite in equal measure, this book will stand as a landmark diagnosis of the practices of denial in our time.
Press (2)
Upcoming (4)
| 10 November | Amsterdam | Henrike Kohpeiß launch |
| 06 November | London | Book launch Bourgeois Coldness, Historical Materialism |
| 04 November | London | Bourgeois Coldness launch, Housmans Bookshop |
| 02 October | Stockholm | Henrike Kohpeiß launches Bourgeois Coldness, Nord Books |