Love Is Forever, Isn't It? : Dorothy Iannone

Vibrant, colorful and explicit, Iannone’s work is a touchstone for 60 years of feminist art and theory

For more than six decades, Dorothy Iannone (1933–2022) represented ecstatic love, the union of gender, feeling and pleasure. Today, her oeuvre is widely recognized as one of the most provocative and fruitful bodies of work in recent decades in terms of the liberalization of female sexuality, and political and feminist issues. A narrative element fed with personal mythologies, experiences and feelings runs through all of her work, unified by her distinctive colorful and graphic style. As Fluxus artist Robert Filliou declared in 1972, “she is a freedom fighter, and a forceful and dedicated artist, skillfully blending imagery and text, beauty and truth. Her aim is no less than human liberation.” This publication sheds new light on the legendary artist’s practice by dealing specifically with her idiosyncratic takes on performativity and transdisciplinarity. New essays by Alison Gingeras, Ana Mendoza Aldana and Joanna Zielinska, together with a selection of texts written by Iannone, offer new approaches to celebrate her work and life.