«Amo le checche perché non fanno il soldato»: appropriazioni queer di Francis Picabia in Italia, 1970-1986 (original) (raw)
Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today
Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today, Bloomsbury, 2022
On the centenary of the fascist party in Italy's ascent to power, Curating Fascism examines the ways in which exhibitions organized from the fall of Benito Mussolini's regime to the present day have shaped collective memory, historical narratives, and political discourse around the Italian ventennio. It charts how shows on fascism have evolved since the postwar period in Italy, explores representations of Italian fascism in exhibitions across the world, and highlights blindspots in art and cultural history, as well as in exhibition practices. Featuring contributions from an international group of art, architectural, design, and cultural historians, as well as journalists and curators, this book treats fascism as both a historical moment and as a major paradigm through which critics, curators, and the public at large have defined the present moment since World War II. It interweaves historical perspectives, critical theory, and direct accounts of exhibitions from the people who conceived them or responded to them most significantly in order to examine the main curatorial strategies, cultural relevance, and political responsibility of art exhibitions focusing on the Fascist period. Through close analysis, the chapter authors unpack the multifaceted specificity of art shows, including architecture and exhibition design, curatorial choices and institutional history, cultural diplomacy and political history, and theories of viewership and constructed collective memory, to evaluate current curatorial practice. In offering fresh new perspectives on the historiography, collective memory, and understanding of fascist art and culture from a contemporary standpoint, Curating Fascism sheds light on the complex exhibition history of Italian fascism not just within Italy but in such countries as the USA, the UK, Germany, and Brazil. It also presents an innovative approach to the growing field of exhibition theory through bringing contributions from curators and exhibition historians, who critically reflect upon curatorial strategies with respect to the delicate subject of fascism and fascist art, into dialogue with scholars of Italian studies and art historians, to address the physical and cultural legacy of fascism in the context of the current historical moment. Table of Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Rethinking Historical Exhibitions in Italy 1. Exhibiting Art of the Fascist Ventennio: Curatorial Choices, Installation Strategies, and Critical Reception from Arte Moderna in Italia 1915–1935 (Florence, 1967) to Annitrenta (Milan, 1982), Luca Quattrocchi, University of Siena, Italy 2. Pluralism as Revisionism: Annitrenta at Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1982, Denis Viva, the University of Trento, Italy 3. Interview with Renato Barilli, Curator of Annitrenta Exhibition at Palazzo Reale (Milan, 1982), Raffaele Bedarida, Cooper Union, New York, USA 4. Art, Life, Politics, and the Seductiveness of Italian Fascism: Post Zang Tumb Tuuum at Fondazione Prada (Milan, 2018), Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida, Art historian and Curator, Italy; Cooper Union, New York, USA 5. Italy's Holocaust on Display: From Carpi-Fossoli to Auschwitz (to Florence), Robert S. C. Gordon, Cambridge University, UK 6. Umbertino Umbertino: The Many Masks of Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Romy Golan, the Graduate Center, CUNY, USA Part Two: Exhibitions of Fascism Around the World 7. Exhibiting and Collecting the F-word in Britain, Rosalind McKever, Curator, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK 8. Novecento Brasiliano: Margherita Sarfatti, Ciccillo Matarazzo, and the Italian Collection of MAC USP, Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, University of São Paulo (MAC USP), Brazil 9. Contextualizing Razionalismo in the exhibition Photographic Recall (2019): Fascist Spaces in Contemporary German Photography, Miriam Paeslack, University at Buffalo (SUNY), New York, USA 10. Feeling at Home: Exhibiting Design, Blurring Fascism, Elena Dellapiana and Jonathan Mekinda, the Politecnico di Torino, Italy; University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), USA 11. Italian Jewish Artists and Fascist Cultural Politics: on Gardens and Ghettos at the Jewish Museum in New York (1989), Emily Braun, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, USA, interviewed by Raffaele Bedarida and Sharon Hecker Part Three: Absences 12. Exhibiting the Homoerotic Body, the Queer Afterlife of Ventennio Male Nudes, John Champagne Penn State Erie, the Behrend College, USA 13. “Partigiano Portami Via”: Exhibiting Antifascism and the Resistance in Post-Fascist Italy, Raffaele Bedarida, Cooper Union, New York, USA 14. Looking at Women and Mental Illness in Fascist Italy: An Exhibition's Dialogical and Feminist Approach, Lucia Re, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 15. Silencing the Colonial Past: The 1993 Exhibition Architettura italiana d'oltremare 1870-1940 in Bologna, Nicola Labanca, University of Siena, Italy 16. Recharting Landscapes in the Exhibition Roma Negata: Postcolonial Routes of the City (2014) and the Digital Project Postcolonial Italy: Mapping Colonial Heritage, Shelleen Greene University of California, Los Angeles, USA Part Four: Curatorial Practices 17. From MRF to Post Zang Tumb Tuuum: The Responsibilities of the Re-hang, Vanessa Rocco, Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, USA 18. The Final Ramp: Addressing Fascism in Italian Futurism at the Guggenheim Museum, Vivien Greene and Susan Thompson, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, USA; Curator and Writer, Brooklyn, USA 19. The Making of MART and the Archivio del Novecento: Interview with Gabriella Belli, Director of the Foundation from the Municipal Museums of Venice 20. Now You See It, Now You Don't: Reconstructing Artists' Studios in Exhibitions on Fascist-Era Art, Sharon Hecker, Art Historian and Curator, Italy 21. Interview with Maaza Mengiste on Project 3541: A Photographic Archive of the 1935-41 Italo-Ethiopian War, Raffaele Bedarida and Sharon Hecker, Art historian and Curator, Italy; Cooper Union, New York, USA
Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal ofthe Fondazione CDEC 26, no. 2 (2024), 2024
Methodologically rich and innovative, Bedarida and Hecker’s bookprovides a much-needed intellectual history of postwar exhibitionson fascism. It addressed the multidimensional specificity of the art show by integrating architecture and exhibition design, curatorial practices and institutional history, cultural diplomacy and political history, as well as theories of viewership and the construction of collective memory. This groundbreaking approach opens new avenues for research in areas that are only briefly explored in the book. For instance, the role of science and technology exhibits, as well as the public display of fascist “anthropological revolution”(eugenics, demography, environmentalism, etc.) offer fertile ground for future investigations.
Gržinić, Marina, Šuvaković, Miško, Stojnić, Aneta, eds. Regimes of Invisibility in Contemporary Art, Theory and Culture, MacMillan, 2017
As early as 1926, Mussolini shared his expectations for Italian art, declaring that on the "wellprepared ground" of Fascism "a new and great art can be reborn, that is both traditionalist and modern."ii He concluded his intervention asserting:
California Italian Studies, 2017
In this article, a Modernist and a Renaissance art historian collaborate to analyze the 1949 exhibition of Renaissance domestic painting at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. Based on unpublished documents at the Ragghianti foundation in Lucca, we trace the genesis, development, and installation of the show, as well as responses to it on the part of the scholarly community and in the popular press. We look at a variety of interests that drove the planners, ranging from postwar politics, historic reconstruction, museology, local economy and tourism, to changing definitions of the family and women’s roles in the home. Finally, we uncover a link between the 1949 show and the establishment of the Palazzo Davanzati museum.