Becoming Leonor Fini – Theatrical Self-Performances between Art and Life

Exploring the artist Leonor Fini’s (1907-1996) self-fashioning and dressing-up practices in light of recent theories of performativity, my presentation highlights how Fini's extension of artistic creative practices, from painted artworks to her self-creation through costumes, masks and fashion, allowed her to become a living artwork to be created and recreated on daily basis. Applying a multisensory methodology, I explore Fini's personal theatricality, photographic self-portraits and self-transformative, genderbending, transgressive dressing-up games in relation to surrealist practices, showcasing the hybrid identities that made up Fini's overall character. Based on my recently published book, in three thematic sections I highlight Fini’s theatrical performances at balls, her self-fashioning and self-promotion as an extraordinary artist in photographic and painted portraits, and her becoming-other through dressing-up, thus charting the artist's personal and creative development, the interaction between her paintings and self-creation and her increasing self-empowerment through sartorial means. As I argue, Fini’s/the artist’s self-fashioning must be understood as a substantial creative practice developing and confirming artistic and personal autonomy and pointing to an extended concept of art where creation and self-creation powerfully enable each other.