Dorothy Iannone: The Story of Bern, [or] Showing Colors, , Dirie Clement

A superb facsimile of Dorothy Ianonnes 1970 comic-book tale of censorship, sexuality and female autonomy

As much as Love and Eros have defined my work since its beginnings, so too has censorship, or its shadow, accompanied it, recalls Dorothy Iannone (born 1933) in her introduction to this facsimile publication of her legendary The Story of Bern, or] Showing Colors. First published by Iannone and her then companion Dieter Roth in 1970, in an edition of 500, the book documents the censorship of Iannones work The (Ta)Rot Pack (1968-69) and the subsequent removal of all his works by Roth, from a collective exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern.
For his exhibition titled Freunde, Friends, dFr nde, legendary curator Harald Szeemann invited Karl Gerstner, Roth, Daniel Spoerri and Andr Thomkins to exhibit artist friends; Roth chose Iannone. The censorship of Iannone, and Roths protest, eventually led to Harald Szeemanns resignation as the director of the institution. Telling the story of this act of censorship as well as the context of the exhibition in Bern and its iteration in a non-censored version in D sseldorf, The Story of Bern is emblematic of Iannones distinctive, explicit and comic-book style, and of her openness about sexuality and the strengthening of female autonomy.