Antipsichiatria, neoavanguardie e pratiche di libertà: Alberto Grifi e Patrizia Vicinelli tra anni Sessanta e Settanta

The essay examines the intertwining of anti-psychiatric thought and neo-avant-garde artistic practices in Italy between the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the work of filmmaker Alberto Grifi and poet-performer Patrizia Vicinelli. Drawing on Franco Basaglia's critique of psychiatric institutions as instruments of social control, the essay traces how Grifi and Vicinelli — through experimental film, verbovisual poetry, and performance — developed a shared aesthetic and political practice aimed at dismantling the normative codes of language, the body, and representation. Their work is read as a form of resistance to the biopolitical apparatus — one that converges, across different artistic registers, with the feminist and queer struggles of the same period. The essay argues that in this constellation of experiences, the artistic gesture and the gesture of care become inseparable: a shared practice of unveiling, recognition, and the production of new, non-normative forms of subjectivity.