vittoria martini - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by vittoria martini
Neroeditions, 2024
Following the open letter published by the ANGA collective, “an international group of artists, c... more Following the open letter published by the ANGA collective, “an international group of artists, curators, writers, and cultural workers who have come together to call for the exclusion of Israel at the Venice Biennale, ” I feel the urgency to offer a wider historical context, in order to understand how far and in which way the institution could act to stay within the borders provided by its statute, and where its institutional responsibility begins. Here, I would like to share what I have studied over the past twenty years, hoping that this text can become a tool for imagining new possibilities.
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Nero Magazine, 2024
This text is a spin-off of another titled The Politics of Imagination: the imaginal as artistic p... more This text is a spin-off of another titled The Politics of Imagination: the imaginal as artistic practice that I wrote for the book accompanying Ludovica Carbotta's exhibition, Very well, on my own (Edizioni MAMbo, Bologna 2024). These commissions have a deadline and a finite word space, and the work is meant to stay within it, sacrificing whole concepts as the study deepens. Although I love that text very much, this time I did not breathe a sigh of relief when I handed it in; I did not feel it closed because my head kept producing a certain reasoning I could not ignore. And here I found a space to share it.
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Ludovica Carbotta, Very well, on my own, catalogue ed. by Caterina Molteni, Edizioni MAMbo, 2024, 2024
Testo per il catalogo generale di Ludovica Carbotta sul suo lavoro più recente. Text for Ludovic... more Testo per il catalogo generale di Ludovica Carbotta sul suo lavoro più recente.
Text for Ludovica Carbotta's general catalogue concerning her more recent work.
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Making Art History in Europe after 1945, Routledge, 2020
This book analyses the intermeshing of state power and art history in Europe since 1945 and up to... more This book analyses the intermeshing of state power and art history in Europe since 1945 and up to the present from a critical, de-centered perspective.
Devoting special attention to European peripheries and to under-researched transnational cultural political initiatives related to the arts implemented after the end of the Second World War, the contributors explore the ways in which this relationship crystallised in specific moments, places, discourses and practices. They make the historic hegemonic centres of the discipline converse with Europe’s Southern and Eastern peripheries, from Portugal to Estonia to Greece.
By stressing the margins’ point of view this volume rethinks the ideological grounds on which art history and the European Union have been constructed as well as the role played by art and culture in the very concept of ‘Europe.’
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Oboe Journal, 2020
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Arch+ Journal for Architecture and Urbanism, 2023
In this text I reflect how a situated work of art can multiply its meanings by changing exhibitio... more In this text I reflect how a situated work of art can multiply its meanings by changing exhibition contexts
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Maria Eichhorn: Relocating a Structure. German Pavilion 2022, 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, edited by Yilmaz Dziewior, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König,, 2022
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Arte contemporanea - Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2021
Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-... more Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-Loup Amselle, Boris Groys e Barbara Rose) Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Roma
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Arte contemporanea - Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2021
Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-... more Arte Contemporanea,
diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-Loup Amselle, Boris Groys e Barbara Rose), Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Roma 2021
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Oboe, 2020
When discussing the Biennale, it is impossible to ignore the particular importance of Venice as i... more When discussing the Biennale, it is impossible to ignore the particular importance of Venice as its host city". The history of the bond between Venice and the Venice Biennale has become an archetype for all those cities that, from the end of the 1980s, took part in the so-called 'biennialization,' namely the explosion of the phenomenon of biennials all over the world. Historically, the image of a decadent Venice was used as a means of regenerating the city and bringing it into the modern world. Its poetic qualities contained a universalism which opened the city up for international consumption. This appealed to universal myth and its appropriation for commercial purposes underlay the development of the early Biennale. The history, beauty and architectural singularity of Venice-which were born out of political and economic necessity-became the distinguishing attributes of the "Patrimony of Venice." Despite the Venice Biennale has never changed its structure, mirroring a lost modern world with its national pavilions, it survived until the post-globalized world remaining at the centre of the art world, the place where the national/local identities still have a voice. The "Patrimony of Venice" is at the core of its success and Venice and its Biennale could be seen today as the archetype of a "brand" thanks to the specificity it preserved. In this text I will analyse the history of the bond between the city of Venice and the Venice Biennale to outline the reasons of a successful "brand".
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OnCurating, 2020
Reprint of the chapter of the book "Just another exhibition", Postmedia 2011
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OnCurating, 2020
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Il 4 marzo scorso La Biennale di Venezia era stata tempestiva nell’ufficializzare lo slittamento ... more Il 4 marzo scorso La Biennale di Venezia era stata tempestiva nell’ufficializzare lo slittamento delle date di apertura della 17. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, da maggio a agosto del 2020. Ricordo, sembra una vita fa, che era stata la prima concreta percezione della drammatica realtà nella quale stavamo soltanto entrando. E’ invece di pochi giorni fa la notizia della definitiva posticipazione al maggio del 2021 della Biennale di Architettura e all’aprile 2022 della 59. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte1. Una notizia che arriva tra le altre, tra quelle dei musei europei che stanno cautamente riprendo in questi giorni.
Non credo che attualmente sia sufficiente “rimandare le mostre” per permettere al pubblico di spostare la data dell’opening sulla propria agenda e rinviare il viaggio a Venezia come se niente fosse, se non una seccatura: “Avevo proprio voglia di andare a Venezia a settembre”.
La notizia è gravissima perché rappresenta il colpo mortale su una città già in ginocchio, una notizia che ha una portata enorme per le conseguenze che causa. La Biennale di Venezia non è qualsiasi altra istituzione, ma un’istituzione che più di ogni altra dovrebbe assumere la propria responsabilità culturale e “abitare” produttivamente di senso e produzione questo vuoto temporale.
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Making Art History in Europe After 1945, Edited by Noemi de Haro García, Patricia Mayayo, Jesús Carrillo, Routledge, 2020
The literature on the Venice Biennale has rarely addressed from a critical point of view the impa... more The literature on the Venice Biennale has rarely addressed from a critical point of view the impact of the Italian politics on this institution and its structure. Reformed in 1932 by the Fascist dictatorship and controlled since then by the central government, still now-a-day the Venice Biennale depends from the political agenda of those parties governing the Democratic Republic of Italy.
This essay aims to focus on two key years in the history of the institution, 1948 and 1968. In these dates, the political tensions among the major Italian parties determined a radical transformation in both the Biennale’s organisation and its artistic programme.
Through the analysis of the politics of display employed in the 24th Venice Bienniale the first part of the essay [written by Stefano Collicelli Cagol] aims to unfold the influence on the Italian art historical discourse of the complex net of traumas, denials and reactions, which characterised Italy in its post-war years. Opened in 1948, the 24th edition was the first one since the end of the war and the collapsed of the Fascist dictatorship. Turning itself into a museum-like institution, the 1948 Biennial responded both to its uncomfortable recent Fascist past and to the international and Italian political turmoil of post 1945.
The Biennale President, Giovanni Ponti – closely linked to the Christian Democratic Party at the time in government – invited some of the most prominent Italian art historians to define the artistic programme of the institution, setting a trend for the following twenty years. Avoiding an ideological reading of the works of art, the Biennale adopted a strategy of historicisation and de-politicisation of contemporary art display, strongly influenced by a pure-visibility approach on art.
This approach lasted with different fortunes until 1973, when the events that unfolded around the Venice Biennale of 1968, forced the Italian Parliament to draft a new statute to replace the one in force, which dated from 1938. The new statute was the symbol of the cultural battle for all Italian institutions after the protest, consequently the Parliament left to the Biennale much autonomy and freedom justified by the particular social, political and cultural situation that followed ‘68. Under the aegis of Carlo Ripa di Meana, affiliated to the PSI – Socialist Italian Party, the rising new Italian political force of the 1980s, the Venice Biennale abandoned its festival structure to become an “institute of permanent culture”, openly ideological, participant in the social and political debate, a “public service”. Between 1974 and 1977, the new statute led to a model of cultural production and consumption that revolved around the political role of art, marking a departure in the traditional art historical framework characterising the institution since the Post-war years. The Biennale returned to the scene after ’68 with a theme-oriented exhibition format in line with the international new art practices expecting the start of an international debate and provided a test-bed for the new course of the PSI within the Italian politics.
With the end of the 1970s, with their tensions and political engagement, the Bienniale further transformed itself to be aligned with the return to the private (stagione del riflusso), a return to a more hedonistic and disengaged period lasting through the 1980s and proposing since 1978 a series of thematic exhibitions with an art historical approach, thus merging the two critical models here analysed and developed by the institution since 1948.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Ricerche di S/Confine, Università di Parma - Dossier 4, 2018, 2018
Nel testo A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler spiega come abbia stabilito i criteri che gli h... more Nel testo A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler spiega come abbia stabilito i criteri che gli hanno permesso di individuare le mostre che potevano definirsi "canoniche" ed entrare in una storia delle esposizioni che egli stesso stava contribuendo a delineare a partire dal 1994. Seguendo questi criteri Ambiente/Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art risulta essere una mostra canonica esemplare: curata da Germano Celant e fulcro dell'intera edizione tematica della Biennale di Venezia del 1976, è stata la prima mostra a storicizzare l'arte installativa (dunque centrale per la storia dell'arte) oltre ad avere proposto un allestimento concettualmente così complesso da aprire innumerevoli narrative (dunque centrale per la metodologia curatoriale).Il mio intervento intende compiere una prima analisi di un caso studio emblematico ancora senza letteratura, proponendo un inquadramento del contesto nel quale la mostra Ambiente/Arte è stata concepita, spiegando i motivi della sua rilevanza e tracciando un bilancio critico che ricade su una questione metodologica e di messa in discussione degli strumenti interpretativi finora elaborati per la scrittura della Storia delle Esposizioni.
In A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler explains how he established the criteria that allowed him to identify the exhibitions that could be defined as "canonical" and enter into a history of the exhibitions that he was helping to delineate starting from 1994. Following these criteria Environment / Art: from Futurism to Body Art turns out to be an exemplary canonical exhibition: curated by Germano Celant and fulcrum of the entire thematic edition of the 1976 Venice Biennale, it was the first exhibition to historicize the installation art and therefore it's central for the history of art, and for proposing a conceptually complex setup to open countless narratives in terms of curatorial innovation. My intervention intends to make a first analysis of an emblematic case study still without literature, proposing a framework of the context in which the exhibition Environment / Art was conceived, explaining the reasons for its relevance and drawing a critical balance that falls on a methodological question and questioning the interpretative tools developed up to now for the writing of the History of Exhibitions. Nel 2010 Bruce Altshuler pubblica A canon of exhibitions (Altshuler 2010), il testo in cui spiega quali fossero stati i criteri che gli permisero di individuare le mostre che potevano essere definite "canoniche" e quindi entrare di diritto in una storia delle esposizioni che lui stesso aveva iniziato a delineare con la pubblicazione, nel 1994, di The Avantgarde in Exhibition (Altshuler 1994). Il lancio della serie Exhibition histories di Afterall è del 2010 e tra il 2008 e il 2013 sono usciti i due tomi sulle mostre che hanno fatto la storia, editi da Phaidon, di nuovo a cura di Bruce Altshuler (Altshuler 2008, 2013). Dunque la questione del canone è piuttosto recente.
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That's IT! Sull'ultima generazione di artisti in Italia e a un metro e ottanta dal confine", 2018
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Arte fuori dall’arte Incontri e scambi fra arti visive e società negli anni Settanta a cura di Cristina Casero, Elena Di Raddo, Francesca Gallo postmedia books 2017, 2017
Nel “clima di profonda riflessione sullo statuto dell’arte e del significato del fare arte in rap... more Nel “clima di profonda riflessione sullo statuto dell’arte e del significato del fare arte in rapporto alla società”, la Biennale di Venezia del 1974 rappresenta un momento centrale. Assente dalla sequenza numerica cronologica alla pari delle biennali di guerra e dunque non considerata un’edizione ufficiale, la Biennale del 1974 segna invece l’inizio di una nuova stagione ed è storicamente la prima a far intendere in quale modo la Biennale post-sessantottina riformata intendesse operare.
Questo intervento intende gettare luce e dare un ruolo centrale a questa edizione nella narrazione della storia culturale degli anni Settanta italiani.
Alla sua prima comparsa dalla proclamazione della riforma avvenuta nel luglio del 1973, la Biennale è consapevole di essere incaricata di mostrare la profonda trasformazione del rapporto tra arte e società che aveva scosso la cultura con il Sessantotto. Intervenire dialetticamente nella realtà culturale, significava affrontare in termini articolati la realtà dell’operare artistico contemporaneo verso un’utilizzazione sociale dell’arte. In questo quadro, le questioni culturali assumevano una dimensione di massa, ponendo alla cultura e alle sue istituzioni la questione urgente di una diversa funzione e di un diverso uso sociale.
La Biennale “democratica e antifascista” presieduta da Carlo Ripa di Meana, decide di partire proprio dalla “straordinaria ricchezza” e dalle “novità avanzatissime” che segnarono le lotte sociali italiane, per dimostrare come non tutte le istituzioni fossero autoritarie e repressive. Attraverso il decentramento, la dichiarata presa di posizione sociale e politica, l’accoglienza dei movimenti, la ricerca di un nuovo pubblico e di nuovi spazi, la Biennale del 1974 creò uno spazio aperto, libero da censura, democratico e profondamente rispondente al suo tempo che istituzionalizzò le pratiche artistiche e intellettuali emerse con il Sessantotto.
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The exhibitionist, 2017
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This paper has been written in the context of Campo15 final project titled "PIIGS - AN Alternativ... more This paper has been written in the context of Campo15 final project titled "PIIGS - AN Alternative Geography of Curating"
http://campo.fsrr.org/
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Neroeditions, 2024
Following the open letter published by the ANGA collective, “an international group of artists, c... more Following the open letter published by the ANGA collective, “an international group of artists, curators, writers, and cultural workers who have come together to call for the exclusion of Israel at the Venice Biennale, ” I feel the urgency to offer a wider historical context, in order to understand how far and in which way the institution could act to stay within the borders provided by its statute, and where its institutional responsibility begins. Here, I would like to share what I have studied over the past twenty years, hoping that this text can become a tool for imagining new possibilities.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Nero Magazine, 2024
This text is a spin-off of another titled The Politics of Imagination: the imaginal as artistic p... more This text is a spin-off of another titled The Politics of Imagination: the imaginal as artistic practice that I wrote for the book accompanying Ludovica Carbotta's exhibition, Very well, on my own (Edizioni MAMbo, Bologna 2024). These commissions have a deadline and a finite word space, and the work is meant to stay within it, sacrificing whole concepts as the study deepens. Although I love that text very much, this time I did not breathe a sigh of relief when I handed it in; I did not feel it closed because my head kept producing a certain reasoning I could not ignore. And here I found a space to share it.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Ludovica Carbotta, Very well, on my own, catalogue ed. by Caterina Molteni, Edizioni MAMbo, 2024, 2024
Testo per il catalogo generale di Ludovica Carbotta sul suo lavoro più recente. Text for Ludovic... more Testo per il catalogo generale di Ludovica Carbotta sul suo lavoro più recente.
Text for Ludovica Carbotta's general catalogue concerning her more recent work.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Making Art History in Europe after 1945, Routledge, 2020
This book analyses the intermeshing of state power and art history in Europe since 1945 and up to... more This book analyses the intermeshing of state power and art history in Europe since 1945 and up to the present from a critical, de-centered perspective.
Devoting special attention to European peripheries and to under-researched transnational cultural political initiatives related to the arts implemented after the end of the Second World War, the contributors explore the ways in which this relationship crystallised in specific moments, places, discourses and practices. They make the historic hegemonic centres of the discipline converse with Europe’s Southern and Eastern peripheries, from Portugal to Estonia to Greece.
By stressing the margins’ point of view this volume rethinks the ideological grounds on which art history and the European Union have been constructed as well as the role played by art and culture in the very concept of ‘Europe.’
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Oboe Journal, 2020
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Arch+ Journal for Architecture and Urbanism, 2023
In this text I reflect how a situated work of art can multiply its meanings by changing exhibitio... more In this text I reflect how a situated work of art can multiply its meanings by changing exhibition contexts
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Maria Eichhorn: Relocating a Structure. German Pavilion 2022, 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, edited by Yilmaz Dziewior, Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König,, 2022
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Arte contemporanea - Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2021
Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-... more Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-Loup Amselle, Boris Groys e Barbara Rose) Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Roma
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Arte contemporanea - Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2021
Arte Contemporanea, diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-... more Arte Contemporanea,
diretta da Vincenzo Trione e Valeria Della Valle (con la codirezione di Jean-Loup Amselle, Boris Groys e Barbara Rose), Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani, Roma 2021
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Oboe, 2020
When discussing the Biennale, it is impossible to ignore the particular importance of Venice as i... more When discussing the Biennale, it is impossible to ignore the particular importance of Venice as its host city". The history of the bond between Venice and the Venice Biennale has become an archetype for all those cities that, from the end of the 1980s, took part in the so-called 'biennialization,' namely the explosion of the phenomenon of biennials all over the world. Historically, the image of a decadent Venice was used as a means of regenerating the city and bringing it into the modern world. Its poetic qualities contained a universalism which opened the city up for international consumption. This appealed to universal myth and its appropriation for commercial purposes underlay the development of the early Biennale. The history, beauty and architectural singularity of Venice-which were born out of political and economic necessity-became the distinguishing attributes of the "Patrimony of Venice." Despite the Venice Biennale has never changed its structure, mirroring a lost modern world with its national pavilions, it survived until the post-globalized world remaining at the centre of the art world, the place where the national/local identities still have a voice. The "Patrimony of Venice" is at the core of its success and Venice and its Biennale could be seen today as the archetype of a "brand" thanks to the specificity it preserved. In this text I will analyse the history of the bond between the city of Venice and the Venice Biennale to outline the reasons of a successful "brand".
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
OnCurating, 2020
Reprint of the chapter of the book "Just another exhibition", Postmedia 2011
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OnCurating, 2020
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Il 4 marzo scorso La Biennale di Venezia era stata tempestiva nell’ufficializzare lo slittamento ... more Il 4 marzo scorso La Biennale di Venezia era stata tempestiva nell’ufficializzare lo slittamento delle date di apertura della 17. Mostra Internazionale di Architettura, da maggio a agosto del 2020. Ricordo, sembra una vita fa, che era stata la prima concreta percezione della drammatica realtà nella quale stavamo soltanto entrando. E’ invece di pochi giorni fa la notizia della definitiva posticipazione al maggio del 2021 della Biennale di Architettura e all’aprile 2022 della 59. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte1. Una notizia che arriva tra le altre, tra quelle dei musei europei che stanno cautamente riprendo in questi giorni.
Non credo che attualmente sia sufficiente “rimandare le mostre” per permettere al pubblico di spostare la data dell’opening sulla propria agenda e rinviare il viaggio a Venezia come se niente fosse, se non una seccatura: “Avevo proprio voglia di andare a Venezia a settembre”.
La notizia è gravissima perché rappresenta il colpo mortale su una città già in ginocchio, una notizia che ha una portata enorme per le conseguenze che causa. La Biennale di Venezia non è qualsiasi altra istituzione, ma un’istituzione che più di ogni altra dovrebbe assumere la propria responsabilità culturale e “abitare” produttivamente di senso e produzione questo vuoto temporale.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Making Art History in Europe After 1945, Edited by Noemi de Haro García, Patricia Mayayo, Jesús Carrillo, Routledge, 2020
The literature on the Venice Biennale has rarely addressed from a critical point of view the impa... more The literature on the Venice Biennale has rarely addressed from a critical point of view the impact of the Italian politics on this institution and its structure. Reformed in 1932 by the Fascist dictatorship and controlled since then by the central government, still now-a-day the Venice Biennale depends from the political agenda of those parties governing the Democratic Republic of Italy.
This essay aims to focus on two key years in the history of the institution, 1948 and 1968. In these dates, the political tensions among the major Italian parties determined a radical transformation in both the Biennale’s organisation and its artistic programme.
Through the analysis of the politics of display employed in the 24th Venice Bienniale the first part of the essay [written by Stefano Collicelli Cagol] aims to unfold the influence on the Italian art historical discourse of the complex net of traumas, denials and reactions, which characterised Italy in its post-war years. Opened in 1948, the 24th edition was the first one since the end of the war and the collapsed of the Fascist dictatorship. Turning itself into a museum-like institution, the 1948 Biennial responded both to its uncomfortable recent Fascist past and to the international and Italian political turmoil of post 1945.
The Biennale President, Giovanni Ponti – closely linked to the Christian Democratic Party at the time in government – invited some of the most prominent Italian art historians to define the artistic programme of the institution, setting a trend for the following twenty years. Avoiding an ideological reading of the works of art, the Biennale adopted a strategy of historicisation and de-politicisation of contemporary art display, strongly influenced by a pure-visibility approach on art.
This approach lasted with different fortunes until 1973, when the events that unfolded around the Venice Biennale of 1968, forced the Italian Parliament to draft a new statute to replace the one in force, which dated from 1938. The new statute was the symbol of the cultural battle for all Italian institutions after the protest, consequently the Parliament left to the Biennale much autonomy and freedom justified by the particular social, political and cultural situation that followed ‘68. Under the aegis of Carlo Ripa di Meana, affiliated to the PSI – Socialist Italian Party, the rising new Italian political force of the 1980s, the Venice Biennale abandoned its festival structure to become an “institute of permanent culture”, openly ideological, participant in the social and political debate, a “public service”. Between 1974 and 1977, the new statute led to a model of cultural production and consumption that revolved around the political role of art, marking a departure in the traditional art historical framework characterising the institution since the Post-war years. The Biennale returned to the scene after ’68 with a theme-oriented exhibition format in line with the international new art practices expecting the start of an international debate and provided a test-bed for the new course of the PSI within the Italian politics.
With the end of the 1970s, with their tensions and political engagement, the Bienniale further transformed itself to be aligned with the return to the private (stagione del riflusso), a return to a more hedonistic and disengaged period lasting through the 1980s and proposing since 1978 a series of thematic exhibitions with an art historical approach, thus merging the two critical models here analysed and developed by the institution since 1948.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Ricerche di S/Confine, Università di Parma - Dossier 4, 2018, 2018
Nel testo A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler spiega come abbia stabilito i criteri che gli h... more Nel testo A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler spiega come abbia stabilito i criteri che gli hanno permesso di individuare le mostre che potevano definirsi "canoniche" ed entrare in una storia delle esposizioni che egli stesso stava contribuendo a delineare a partire dal 1994. Seguendo questi criteri Ambiente/Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art risulta essere una mostra canonica esemplare: curata da Germano Celant e fulcro dell'intera edizione tematica della Biennale di Venezia del 1976, è stata la prima mostra a storicizzare l'arte installativa (dunque centrale per la storia dell'arte) oltre ad avere proposto un allestimento concettualmente così complesso da aprire innumerevoli narrative (dunque centrale per la metodologia curatoriale).Il mio intervento intende compiere una prima analisi di un caso studio emblematico ancora senza letteratura, proponendo un inquadramento del contesto nel quale la mostra Ambiente/Arte è stata concepita, spiegando i motivi della sua rilevanza e tracciando un bilancio critico che ricade su una questione metodologica e di messa in discussione degli strumenti interpretativi finora elaborati per la scrittura della Storia delle Esposizioni.
In A canon of exhibitions, Bruce Altshuler explains how he established the criteria that allowed him to identify the exhibitions that could be defined as "canonical" and enter into a history of the exhibitions that he was helping to delineate starting from 1994. Following these criteria Environment / Art: from Futurism to Body Art turns out to be an exemplary canonical exhibition: curated by Germano Celant and fulcrum of the entire thematic edition of the 1976 Venice Biennale, it was the first exhibition to historicize the installation art and therefore it's central for the history of art, and for proposing a conceptually complex setup to open countless narratives in terms of curatorial innovation. My intervention intends to make a first analysis of an emblematic case study still without literature, proposing a framework of the context in which the exhibition Environment / Art was conceived, explaining the reasons for its relevance and drawing a critical balance that falls on a methodological question and questioning the interpretative tools developed up to now for the writing of the History of Exhibitions. Nel 2010 Bruce Altshuler pubblica A canon of exhibitions (Altshuler 2010), il testo in cui spiega quali fossero stati i criteri che gli permisero di individuare le mostre che potevano essere definite "canoniche" e quindi entrare di diritto in una storia delle esposizioni che lui stesso aveva iniziato a delineare con la pubblicazione, nel 1994, di The Avantgarde in Exhibition (Altshuler 1994). Il lancio della serie Exhibition histories di Afterall è del 2010 e tra il 2008 e il 2013 sono usciti i due tomi sulle mostre che hanno fatto la storia, editi da Phaidon, di nuovo a cura di Bruce Altshuler (Altshuler 2008, 2013). Dunque la questione del canone è piuttosto recente.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
That's IT! Sull'ultima generazione di artisti in Italia e a un metro e ottanta dal confine", 2018
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Arte fuori dall’arte Incontri e scambi fra arti visive e società negli anni Settanta a cura di Cristina Casero, Elena Di Raddo, Francesca Gallo postmedia books 2017, 2017
Nel “clima di profonda riflessione sullo statuto dell’arte e del significato del fare arte in rap... more Nel “clima di profonda riflessione sullo statuto dell’arte e del significato del fare arte in rapporto alla società”, la Biennale di Venezia del 1974 rappresenta un momento centrale. Assente dalla sequenza numerica cronologica alla pari delle biennali di guerra e dunque non considerata un’edizione ufficiale, la Biennale del 1974 segna invece l’inizio di una nuova stagione ed è storicamente la prima a far intendere in quale modo la Biennale post-sessantottina riformata intendesse operare.
Questo intervento intende gettare luce e dare un ruolo centrale a questa edizione nella narrazione della storia culturale degli anni Settanta italiani.
Alla sua prima comparsa dalla proclamazione della riforma avvenuta nel luglio del 1973, la Biennale è consapevole di essere incaricata di mostrare la profonda trasformazione del rapporto tra arte e società che aveva scosso la cultura con il Sessantotto. Intervenire dialetticamente nella realtà culturale, significava affrontare in termini articolati la realtà dell’operare artistico contemporaneo verso un’utilizzazione sociale dell’arte. In questo quadro, le questioni culturali assumevano una dimensione di massa, ponendo alla cultura e alle sue istituzioni la questione urgente di una diversa funzione e di un diverso uso sociale.
La Biennale “democratica e antifascista” presieduta da Carlo Ripa di Meana, decide di partire proprio dalla “straordinaria ricchezza” e dalle “novità avanzatissime” che segnarono le lotte sociali italiane, per dimostrare come non tutte le istituzioni fossero autoritarie e repressive. Attraverso il decentramento, la dichiarata presa di posizione sociale e politica, l’accoglienza dei movimenti, la ricerca di un nuovo pubblico e di nuovi spazi, la Biennale del 1974 creò uno spazio aperto, libero da censura, democratico e profondamente rispondente al suo tempo che istituzionalizzò le pratiche artistiche e intellettuali emerse con il Sessantotto.
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The exhibitionist, 2017
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This paper has been written in the context of Campo15 final project titled "PIIGS - AN Alternativ... more This paper has been written in the context of Campo15 final project titled "PIIGS - AN Alternative Geography of Curating"
http://campo.fsrr.org/
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Thomas Hirschhorn: The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival. The Ambassador's Diary, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2023
The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival is an artwork, a sculpture, created by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhor... more The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival is an artwork, a sculpture, created by Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn in a peripheral borough of Amsterdam’s south-east known as the Bijlmer in 2009. This book recounts the event through the eyes of its “Ambassador”, art historian Vittoria Martini, who was invited by the artist to be an eyewitness to the existence of this “precarious” work. A term Hirschhorn sees as positive and creative: a means of asserting the importance of the moment and of the place, of asserting the Here and Now to touch eternity and universality. Appreciating the art historian’s presence as a central element of his sculpture, Hirschhorn consciously challenged the certainties of the profession by empowering and activating the role, thus leading Martini to find a new working methodology that she calls “precarious art history”. Accompanying the readers through her experience of the physical existence of The Bijlmer Spinoza-Festival, Martini’s commentary leads to the profound understanding of how a work that no longer exists physically, can live on in the mind—elsewhere, at some other time—because in the meantime it has become universal.
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PhD Università Ca' Foscari Venezia Copyright: © Maria Vittoria Martini, 2011 Abstract: Nel 1968... more PhD Università Ca' Foscari Venezia
Copyright: © Maria Vittoria Martini, 2011
Abstract:
Nel 1968 il critico d’arte inglese Lawrence Alloway terminava The Venice Biennale 1895-1968. From salon to goldfish bowl sostenendo che fosse urgente che la Biennale elaborasse un “sistema di controllo” sulle mostre che risolvesse la sua complessa “struttura cellulare”. E’ in questo punto che cronologicamente si innesta questa ricerca: la crisi istituzionale e funzionale della Biennale giunse al culmine diventando la causa che ne fece l’obiettivo della contestazione sessantottina e il radicale rinnovamento richiesto dalla società civile si espresse nella riforma dello statuto “democratico e antifascista” del 1973. L’ipotesi di questa ricerca è che quel “sistema di controllo” sia stato trovato e testato con l’edizione del 1976 e che questo non sia altro che il frutto delle irripetibili esperienze civili e culturali realizzate all’interno e intorno alla Biennale immediatamente dopo la contestazione.
In 1968 the art critic Lawrence Alloway ended The Venice Biennale 1895-1968. From salon to goldfish bowl asserting that it was necessary that Venice Biennale worked out a “control system” on its exhibitions in order to solve its complex “cellular structure”. It is in this very moment that this research inserts itself chronologically. The institutional and functional crisis came to the apex in 1968 when the Biennale became the target of the protests for these reasons. The quest for a radical renewal of the cultural institution coming from civil society, finally expressed itself in the 1973 “democratic and antifascist” reform. This research hypothesis is that the “control system” on the exhibitions has found and tested in occasion of 1976 Biennale and that it was the result of all the civil and cultural experiences developed soon after ’68 protests in and around the Venice Biennale.
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Huang Yong Ping is a French artist of Chinese origin. His works unite numerous influences, which ... more Huang Yong Ping is a French artist of Chinese origin. His works unite numerous influences, which are both mediatic and cultural, but he is principally inspired by the Dada movement and Chinese traditions of numerology. He often works on the large scale: his installations are sometimes of colossal dimensions, up to several dozen meters. He has participated in two editions of the Venice Biennale and his works have been exhibited in important museums and galleries around the world
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In the last twenty years the “Biennale” has become a prominent exhibition model, disseminated all... more In the last twenty years the “Biennale” has become a prominent exhibition model, disseminated all over the globalized art system. A laboratory for curatorial experimentation, the Biennale has come to affect and make visible international exhibition practices. Conversations with Thomas Hirschhorn, Alfredo Jaar, Antoni Muntadas, and Stéphanie Moisdon focus on the questions brought about by each chapter, and open up to different ways of thinking about national representation, history-making and conceptualization of biennials’ exhibition formats in contemporary art.
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Le edizioni della Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte tra il 1974 e il 1978 sono segnate dalla rifo... more Le edizioni della Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte tra il 1974 e il 1978 sono segnate dalla riforma dello statuto avvenuta nel 1973. La completa ridefinizione delle strutture e degli obiettivi istituzionali, ha portato a un dichiarato posizionamento “democratico e antifascista” nei rapporti con i paesi stranieri. La linea democratica e antifascista diventa il carattere ispiratore delle attività della Esposizione, una scelta morale e culturale, oltre che ideale e politica.
Nel mio intervento cercherò di contestualizzare la situazione politica italiana nella quale avvennero le edizioni dedicate alla libertà al Cile (1974), al ritorno della Spagna alla democrazia dopo la fine del quarantennio franchista (1975) e alla dissidenza nei paesi dell’est Europa (1977).
Lo Scrittoio della Biennale. XIII edizione
ARTE, SOLIDARIETÀ E DIPLOMAZIA. IL CILE E LA BIENNALE 1974
a cura di Mariagrazia Muscatello e Francesca Castellani
16 Aprile 2024
Venezia, Università Iuav, Palazzo Badoer, Aula Tafuri e online
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Se la storia delle mostre vuole farsi più avvincente e produttiva, deve superare la mera cronaca ... more Se la storia delle mostre vuole farsi più avvincente e produttiva, deve superare la mera cronaca dei fatti interni alla mostra e cercare di ampliare le narrative a partire dal capire che eredità ha lasciato, che ricadute ha avuto, e se non porta a una moltiplicazione dei discorsi, forse significa che non risulta produttivo analizzare ulteriormente quella mostra in sé, ma magari quella stessa mostra può essere produttiva per l’analisi, ad esempio, delle strategie istituzionali in un delicato momento di passaggio come quello della Biennale tra il 1978 e il 1980. L’edizione del 1978 è un’edizione di passaggio, il preludio di un ritorno al conservatorismo, si parla di “riflusso” e infatti nel 1980 torna la pittura dopo anni di sperimentazione.
Lara Vinca Masini aveva anticipato uno spostamento verso interventi artistici e architettonici critici nella città contemporanea, ma proprio questa sua preoccupazione di operare nell'ambito pubblico, la colloca al di fuori delle tendenze emergenti degli anni Ottanta (troppo poco mercato), nonostante realizzasse mostre che attivavano spazi che diventavano allo stesso tempo contaminati e contaminanti. Lara-Vinca Masini è certamente stata profondamente indipendente nell’animo, certamente non conforme, costantemente alla ricerca di espressioni che riflettessero i temi che le stavano più a cuore, piuttosto che formulare una firma stilistica o perseguire un maggiore protagonismo.
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If the history of the exhibitions wants to become more compelling and productive, it must go beyond the mere reporting of events within the exhibition and try to broaden the narratives starting from understanding what legacy it has left, what repercussions it has had, and whether it does not lead to a multiplication of discourses, perhaps it means that it is not productive to further analyze that exhibition in itself, but perhaps that same exhibition can be productive for the analysis, for example, of institutional strategies in a delicate moment of transition such as that of the Biennale between 1978 and 1980 The 1978 edition is a passing edition, the prelude to a return to conservatism, there is talk of "ebb" and in fact in 1980 painting returns after years of experimentation.
Lara Vinca Masini had anticipated a shift towards critical artistic and architectural interventions in the contemporary city, but this very concern of hers to operate in the public sphere places her outside the emerging trends of the 1980s (too little market), despite the fact that she created exhibitions that they activated spaces that became simultaneously contaminated and contaminating. Lara-Vinca Masini was certainly profoundly independent at heart, certainly not compliant, constantly looking for expressions that reflected the themes that were closest to her heart, rather than formulating a stylistic signature or pursuing greater protagonism.
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Nel 1976 Michelangelo Pistoletto presenta per la prima volta la sua produzione completa a Palazzo... more Nel 1976 Michelangelo Pistoletto presenta per la prima volta la sua produzione completa a Palazzo Grassi - Centro Internazionale delle arti e del costume. In occasione di questa importante personale, Pistoletto decide di presentare tutto il corpus degli Oggetti in meno, opere realizzate a partire dal 1965 che sono la “semplice evidenza della presenza dell'oggetto…che non fanno finta, sono semplicemente lì, proprio nello spazio dello spettatore”. Gli oggetti in meno indicano con insistenza l'emergere di una nuova forma di teatralità nel suo lavoro, una forma in cui lo spazio per l'arte è progressivamente concepito come spazio per l'azione.
Dalle fotografie dell'allestimento, emerge come la mostra fosse costruita come una vera e propria drammaturgia nello spazio: a Palazzo Grassi, Pistoletto mette in scena nello spazio le sue opere.
Sul comunicato stampa e sul catalogo, non compare nessuna figura di curatore e, parlando con lo stesso artista, emerge come la mostra sia stata allestita da Pistoletto stesso.
Pistoletto, però, invita Germano Celant a curare il catalogo.
Il mio intervento intende analizzare Pistoletto (Electa editrice 1976) il catalogo che accompagna la mostra curata da Germano Celant. Il catalogo è composto dal suo testo titolato “Primi appunti, con citazioni, per una cronologia di Michelangelo Pistoletto” ed è un regesto della produzione completa dell'artista, attraverso una raccolta di citazioni, di estratti dagli scritti, dalle interviste e dai testi critici pubblicati sin dai primi anni '60. Come sempre, anche in questo catalogo, Celant sparisce per dare voce unicamente all’artista.
Ma sparisce la sua voce oppure sembra soltanto sparire e in realtà Celant ci sta portando da un'altra parte?
Il mio intervento intende leggere questo catalogo attraverso l’analisi della posizione critica che Celant afferma nel 1970 nel testo Per una critica acritica, nel quale dichiara che la critica deve diventare “complice” della produzione in arte e “procedere affiancata all’arte”. Ma la sintonia tra il lavoro teorico di Celant che procedeva dal 1967 tutto volto verso il ragionamento sullo spazio e la teatralità, e la messa in scena delle opere nello spazio di Palazzo Grassi realizzata da Michelangelo Pistoletto, fa del catalogo Pistoletto un caso studio per gettare luce sulla metodologia critica di Germano Celant.
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In 1976 Michelangelo Pistoletto presented his complete production for the first time at Palazzo Grassi - International Center of Arts and Costume. On the occasion of this important solo exhibition, Pistoletto decides to present the entire corpus of Objects in Less, works created starting from 1965 which are the "simple evidence of the presence of the object... which do not pretend, they are simply there, right in the space of viewer". The fewer objects persistently indicate the emergence of a new form of theatricality in his work, a form in which the space for art is progressively conceived as a space for action.
From the photographs of the installation, it emerges that the exhibition was constructed as a true dramaturgy in space: at Palazzo Grassi, Pistoletto stages his works in space.
In the press release and in the catalogue, no curator figure appears and, speaking with the artist himself, it emerges that the exhibition was set up by Pistoletto himself.
Pistoletto, however, invited Germano Celant to edit the catalogue.
My intervention intends to analyze Pistoletto (Electa editrice 1976) the catalog that accompanies the exhibition curated by Germano Celant. The catalog is composed of his text entitled "First notes, with quotations, for a chronology of Michelangelo Pistoletto" and is a summary of the artist's complete production, through a collection of quotations, extracts from his writings, interviews and critical texts published since the early 1960s. As always, even in this catalogue, Celant disappears to give voice solely to the artist.
But does his voice disappear or does it just seem to disappear and is Celant actually taking us somewhere else?
My intervention intends to read this catalog through the analysis of the critical position that Celant affirmed in 1970 in the text For an uncritical criticism, in which he declared that criticism must become an "accomplice" of production in art and "proceed alongside art". But the harmony between Celant's theoretical work which had been proceeding since 1967, all aimed at reasoning on space and theatricality, and the staging of the works in the space of Palazzo Grassi created by Michelangelo Pistoletto, makes the Pistoletto catalog a case study for light on the critical methodology of Germano Celant.
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Invited by ecm masterlehrgang to present a critical history of the Venice Biennale_ The history o... more Invited by ecm masterlehrgang to present a critical history of the Venice Biennale_ The history of the Venice Biennale can be told in many ways and following different perspectives.
The story that I will present on this occasion will read the Venice Biennale in its complexity of -quoting Lawrence Alloway- "entity in time", in close relation to the political, diplomatic and economic context that has always informed cultural choices. From 1895 to the present, this intervention aims to offer an overview of an institution defined by Alloway as "multicellular", which at a time of post-globalization continues to be surprisingly current. This will be an opportunity to discuss the potential and shortcomings of this great display machine.
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![Research paper thumbnail of "Immagine, spazio e teatralità. Michelangelo Pistoletto e Germano Celant, 1967-1976: una proposta di lettura contestuale" [Image, Space, Theatricality. Michelangelo Pistoletto and Germano Celant 1967-1976: a proposal for a Contextual Reading]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/62949632/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](24-25 October 2019, Palazzo Grassi and the history of its exhibitions #2 - An eccentric line of I... more 24-25 October 2019, Palazzo Grassi and the history of its exhibitions #2 - An eccentric line of Italian art, a cura di Stefano Colliceli Cagol, Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venezia
In 1976 Palazzo Grassi inaugurated Michelangelo Pistoletto's first major solo exhibition in an Italian institution. The exhibition is set up directly by the artist who calls Germano Celant to take care of its publication. Staring from the links between Pistoletto's artistic research with Celant's methodological one, that the influences and analogies are evident. In 1967 Pistoletto began to stage "Oggetti in meno" in his studio, while the same year Germano Celant began to experiment with his theory of space that brings the image "from signifying space to being space". In 1976 Michelangelo Pistoletto conceived his exhibition at Palazzo Grassi as a staging of his works in space. The same year Germano Celant realized Ambiente / Arte at the Venice Biennale, proposing an exhibition model in which the curatorial work between space, time, architecture and theatricality, generates an exhibition both site and time-specific in which consistency is given by the relationship between the exhibition medium and the works on display. The intervention is a first proposal in the context of wider research on Germano Celant's curatorial methodology.
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in "Esposizioni", Atti del convegno, Parma, 27-28 gennaio 2017, a cura di Francesca Castellani, Francesca Gallo, Vanja Strukelj, Francesca Zanella, Stefania Zuliani in "Ricerche di s/confine. Oggetti e pratiche artistico/culturali", n. 4 , 2018
L’intervento si concentra sul catalogo curato da Achille Bonito Oliva e pubblicato in occasione d... more L’intervento si concentra sul catalogo curato da Achille Bonito Oliva e pubblicato in occasione della
mostra Amore mio inaugurata a Montepulciano nel 1970. Il libro diventa l’occasione per sottolineare e
ridefinire il meccanismo espositivo mettendo in discussione una logica oppositiva diventata a questa
data garanzia di genuinità delle pratiche sperimentali. In Amore mio gli artisti vengono chiamati nel
catalogo a considerarsi in rapporto ad altri artisti, con il proposito di analizzarli nella loro essenza
relazionale e di gruppo. È l’inizio di una tendenza di Bonito Oliva a lavorare sul campo delle teorie
dell’informazione, riprendendo alcune idee prettamente sociologiche che iniziano a diffondersi in questi
anni. Come avverrà per altri progetti del critico, e come si era già verificato in situazioni espositive
internazionali, il catalogo inizia a prendere una forma totalmente indipendente, slegata dalla mostra, ma
allo stesso tempo a proporsi non più come illustrazione, ma didascalia problematizzante, a volte anche
in totale contrapposizione con la mostra stessa.
The event focuses on the catalogue curated by Achille Bonito Oliva and published on the occasion of
the Amore mio exhibition, opened in Montepulciano in 1970. The book provides the opportunity to
discuss and redefine the concept of exhibition by questioning the oppositionist approach that has come
to guarantee the genuineness of experimental practices. In Amore mio, the catalogue is a means for
artists to cooperate, in order for their ability to communicate and interact within a group to be analysed.
Indeed, Bonito Oliva has started working on information theories, drawing inspiration from sociological
ideas that have been spreading in recent years. As in future projects by the critic and past international
exhibitions, catalogues are starting to become increasingly independent and detached from exhibitions,
being no longer a mere collection of pictures, but rather a critical caption that is sometimes in contrast
with the very exhibition.
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rapporti fra arte e società nell'Italia degli anni Settanta
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Nel testo “A canon of exhibitions”, Bruce Altshuler spiega quali siano stati i criteri da lui sta... more Nel testo “A canon of exhibitions”, Bruce Altshuler spiega quali siano stati i criteri da lui stabiliti che gli hanno permesso di individuare le mostre che potevano definirsi “canoniche” ed entrare in una storia delle esposizioni che egli stesso stava contribuendo a delineare. Sostanzialmente i criteri individuati sono due: le mostre che per il loro significato storico-artistico sono importanti per la storia dell’arte e le mostre innovative per l’approccio curatoriale, cambiando la maniera stessa nella quale si concepisce una mostra. Seguendo questi criteri la mostra "Ambiente/Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art" risulta essere esemplare: curata da Germano Celant e fulcro dell’intera edizione tematica della Biennale di Venezia del 1976, è stata la prima mostra a storicizzare l’arte installativa (dunque centrale per la storia dell’arte) oltre ad avere proposto un allestimento concettualmente così complesso da aprire innumerevoli narrative.
Un discorso sul canone espositivo è “relativamente recente”, come scrive Altshuler e attualmente c’è un grande dibattito sulla questione del canone, cioèse sia giusto o meno impostare la storia delle esposizioni seguendo una una genealogia. Ma se manca il canone non si puòutilizzare la "lingua franca" per facilitare le domande e la discussione in un campo altrimenti sterminato. Ma chi scrive il canone e dunque chi traccia le basi di questa storia?
Il mio intervento intende compiere una prima analisi di un caso studio emblematico, ma ancora senza letteratura, proponendo un inquadramento del contesto nel quale la mostra Ambiente/Arte èstata concepita, spiegando i motivi della sua rilevanza e tracciando un bilancio critico che ricade su una questione metodologica e di messa in discussione degli strumenti interpretativi finora elaborati per una scrittura della Storia delle Esposizioni.
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Born to "stimulate the new contemporary art market", following the 1968 protest the Biennale was ... more Born to "stimulate the new contemporary art market", following the 1968 protest the Biennale was forced to close its Sales Office and suppress its prizes. The Hiennale had been violently contested for failing to fulfill it's responsibility as a public institution: instead of promoting and independent culture, it was dependent on politics and compromised by organisation criteria that were regarded as incoherent. This system had led to exhibitions that focused more on second-rate culture and market than on research and critical/rigorous analysis.
In the wake of the protest, in 1973 the president of the Itakian Republic signed a bill that reformed the Biennale and changed the nature of the public cultural institution.
The first four years after the reform, 1974-1978, are an interesting case study that reveals the complex relationships between the Biennale and the art market.
In this paper I will analyse 1976 as the first and last really thematic edition of the Biennale and I will argue the reasons that brought in 1980 to the appointment of conservative Giusepoe Galasso as president of the institution. Galasso was a "normalised" who put an end to an age of radical experimentation and fought back historical exhibitions in which painting was the absolute protagonist, along with the market.
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Making Art History in Europe after 1945 (the ‘Work’) edited by Noemi de Haro-García, Patricia Mayayo-Bost and Jesús Carrillo-Castillo (‘the Editor’), Routledge
The events that unfolded around the Venice Biennale of 1968, forced the Italian Parliament to dra... more The events that unfolded around the Venice Biennale of 1968, forced the Italian Parliament to draft a new statute to replace the one in force, which dated from 1938. Between 1974 and 1977, the new rules led to a model of cultural production and consumption that revolved around the political roleof art, marking a departure in the traditional art historical framework characterising the institution since the Post-war years.
In that period the politicization of the Biennale is evident not only in the contents of the initiatives and in its approach to the arts, but also in the ‘lotting’ practice, in which the ruling parties negotiated for the most important positions. The Presidency of the reformed Biennale was granted to the Partito Socialista Italiano’s Carlo Ripa di Meana.
During the mandate of Ripa di Meana, between 1974 and 1977, two main issues were developed, not unlike leimotivs. The first is the ‘decentralization’ and the search for a new audience, which was also, at the same time, the search for a new relationship with Venice, its inhabitants and territory,
by focusing on the preservation of the city, but also on the deep change in the traditional mercantilistic relationship between art objects and the exhibition itself. This issue is evident in the general spreading around the city of 1975’s activities of the institution. The second main issue I would like to address in this talk is the main leitmotiv of this four-year period, i.e. the anti-fascist stance coupled with a declaration of cultural-institutional independence. This leitmotiv emerges clearly in the 1974 edition, Libertà al Cile, in the homage to post-Franco Spain organized in 1976, and in the 1977 edition dedicated to the “cultural dissent in the Eastern European countries”.
The debates in the press and the initiatives organized in this period reveal how the Venetian institution mirrored the changes in Italian politics. The Biennale testified to the declining popularity of the two mass parties (DC and PCI) and provided a test-bed for the new course of the PSI’s leader
Bettino Craxi, who was determined to exploit the “anthropological mutation” of Italian society
which Pier Paolo Pasolini was exposing in the same period.
By analysing the multidisciplinary initiatives of the Visual Arts sector of the Biennale, I would like to understand the interplay between art and politics following the 1968 protests, the ‘Years of Lead’ and the 1977 new wave of student protests; the impact on the art historical debate within both national and international context; the reactions among Italian art historians and the legacy of those experimental years within the history of the Biennial.
This paper intends to respond to the Session 1, by analysing the influence on a state-run institution such as the Venice Biennale of a series of political decisions and tensions by looking at the impact on both the Italian society and the local and international art historical debate of the time.
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