Postwar Italian Art History Today: Untying 'the Knot'

Description

Postwar Italian Art History Today brings fresh critical consideration to the parameters and impact of Italian art and visual culture studies of the past several decades. Taking its cue from the thirty-year anniversary of curator Germano Celant's landmark exhibition at PS1 in New York - The Knot - this volume presents innovative case studies and emphasizes new methodologies deployed in the study of postwar Italian art as a means to evaluate the current state of the field. Included are fifteen essays that each examine, from a different viewpoint, the issues, concerns, and questions driving postwar Italian art history. The editors and contributors call for a systematic reconsideration of the artistic origins of postwar Italian art, the terminology that is used to describe the work produced, and key personalities and institutions that promoted and supported the development and marketing of this art in Italy and abroad.

Sharon Hecker specializes in Italian modern and contemporary art and is a leading authority on Medardo Rosso. She most recently published A Moment's Monument: Medardo Rosso and the International Origins of Modern Sculpture (2017). Marin R. Sullivan (PhD, University of Michigan, USA) is a Chicago-based art historian and curator. She is the author of Sculptural Materiality in the Age of Conceptualism (2017) and numerous publications on modern and contemporary sculpture.

Sharon Hecker and Marin R. Sullivan's Postwar Italian Art History Today is a long-overdue reflection on a vital period in contemporary art history one that has rarely been approached comprehensively. Offering a wide variety of perspectives on a number of lesser known artists and underexplored artistic and cultural interchanges, this collection of essays provides a much needed reassessment of Italian postwar art history and the intricacies and oppositions that define it. * Claire Gilman, Chief Curator, The Drawing Center, USA * I couldn't be more pleased to learn of this publication. It is a glorious reflection of the state of the field of postwar Italian Art History-international, multigenerational, polyglot, endlessly informative, and catalytic--and proof that the history of postwar Italian art is as richly diverse and complex as any. This volume contains a wonderful collection of ground-breaking scholarship that will be valuable to scholars and students for generations to come. * Adrian R. Duran, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA *