Postwar Italian Art History Today

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.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroductionSharon Hecker (Independent, USA) and Marin R. Sullivan (Independent Art Historian and Curator, USA)Section I – Reconsidering the Weight of Italy1.“Yes, but are you Italian?:” Considering the Legacy of Italianità in Postwar and Contemporary Italian ArtLaura Petican (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA)2.Learning from Artists. Methodological Notes on Post-war Italian Art HistoryDenis Viva (University of Trento and University of Udine, Italy)3.Gianni Pettena and Ugo La Pietra. Crossing the Boundaries between Theory and PracticeSilvia Bottinelli (School of the Museum of Fine Art-Tufts University, USA)4.Our Lady of Warka: Gino De Dominicis and the Search for ImmortalityGabriele Guercio (Independent, Italy)Section II – Re-Imagining Realism 5.Transatlantic Exchanges. Piero Dorazio: Non-Objective Art vs. Abstract Expressionism?Davide Colombo (University of Parma, Italy)6.Gleaning Italia Gleaning Italian Pop, 1960-66: the 1964 Venice Biennale, Renato Mambor's 'Thread', and Pop as a Global PhenomenonChristopher Bennett (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA)7.Photography, visual poetry and radical architecture in the early works of Franco VaccariNicoletta Leonardi (Turin Academy of Fine Arts and University of California Florence Study Center, Italy)Section III –Rethinking Modes of Patronage8.Buying Marino Marini: The American Market for Italian Art after WWII Antje Gamble (Murray State University, USA) 9.A House No Longer Divided: Patronage, Pluralism, and Creative Freedom in Italian Pre- and Postwar ArtLaura Moure Cecchini (Colgate University, USA)10.Co-research and Art: Danilo Montaldi's Horizontal Production of KnowledgeJacopo Galimberti (British Academy, University of Manchester, UK)11.Shaping and Reshaping: Private and Institutional PatronageMartina Tanga (Independent, USA)Section IV – Reassessing Arte Povera12.Isolated Fragments: Disentangling the Relationship Between Arte Povera and Medardo RossoSharon Hecker (Independent, Italy)13.Gilberto Zorio's Radical FluidityElizabeth Mangini (California College of the Arts, USA)14.Summer Solstice A.D. MCMLXIII. Luciano Fabro's Early WorksGiorgio Zanchetti (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)15.Transatlantic Arte PoveraRaffaele Bedarida (Cooper Union, USA)BibliographyIndex