Books by Laura Moure Cecchini
Annali d'Italianistica, 2023
Journal of Art Historiography, 2023
In Baroquemania, Laura Moure Cecchini takes her readers on a fascinating, lesstravelled journey t... more In Baroquemania, Laura Moure Cecchini takes her readers on a fascinating, lesstravelled journey through Italian art from the fin de siècle to the end of the Second World War, the years when Italy was consolidating its position as a nation state. The book focuses on the Baroque, at a time when the main accepted aesthetic paradigms were first decadent and futurist aesthetics, and later rationalism. How did the Baroque feature within a landscape that intentionally seemed to exclude it? On which grounds-political, economic, social or aesthetic-was the Baroque marginalised from the official artistic history of the new nation state? And why could the Baroque not be an integral part of Italian national identity? These are just some of the questions that naturally arise from the book's main argument that 'by reinventing Baroque forms in their artistic and architectural practices, Italians confronted their fears about the past and imagined the future of their nation.' 1 The Baroque therefore becomes a tool for questioning certain fundamental aspects of the nation-forming process, including some that are not quantifiable historically, socially or economically. Moreover, investigating both the presence of Baroque art and its theorisation calls for a re-evaluation of key discussions about Italian artistic culture: the relationship between regionalism and nationalism, Italy's internationalism, and the development of modernism. In so doing, by re-inscribing the Baroque within Italy's intellectual and artistic landscapes, Baroquemania challenges the alleged hegemony of the classical tradition or of 1930s rationalism in unidirectionally shaping Italian culture. Unlike the consolidated classical tradition and the solid modernity of rationalism, the anti-classical Baroque, with its complex and ambivalent visual repertoire, enabled Italians to question rather than to affirm their newly found national identity, their sense of belonging to a modern nation, and even their faith in a bright future. Or, in the author's own words: 'The afterlives of the Baroque in modern Italy, and its temporal and conceptual destabilisation, allowed Italians to work through a crisis of modernity and develop a distinctively Italian modern approach to visual culture.' 2
sehepunkte 23 (2023), Nr. 4 [15.04.2023], 2023
https://www.italianmodernart.org/events/baroquemania-a-book-talk-by-author-laura-moure-cecchini/
Monday, February 6, 5:00 PM, Boylston Hall 403
Harvard University, Department of Romance Languag... more Monday, February 6, 5:00 PM, Boylston Hall 403
Harvard University, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Laura Moure Cecchini (Università di Padova) will present her new book:
BAROQUEMANIA: ITALIAN VISUAL CULTURE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 1898-1945
Respondent: GUIDO GUERRA
Everybody is welcome. Seating is limited.
Modern Italy , 2022
In this special issue of Modern Italy, four early-career scholars examine how the study of object... more In this special issue of Modern Italy, four early-career scholars examine how the study of objects and images rooted in Fascist imperialist history enables a sustained interrogation of Italy's colonial imaginary. Their articles explore the diverse possibilities offered by the study of visual and material culture for scholars of imperialism, as it is precisely this realm of visual and material culture that emerges as a site of negotiation in which different individuals and constituencies contended with the regime's ideology.
La Diana. Rivista semestrale della Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Storico Artistici dell’Università degli studi di Siena, 2022
Baroquemania explores the intersections of art, architecture and criticism to show how reimaginin... more Baroquemania explores the intersections of art, architecture and criticism to show how reimagining the Baroque helped craft a distinctively Italian approach to modern art. Offering a bold reassessment of post-unification visual culture, the book examines a wide variety of media and ideologically charged discourses on the Baroque, both inside and outside the academy. Key episodes in the modern afterlife of the Baroque are addressed, notably the Decadentist interpretation of Gianlorenzo Bernini, the 1911 universal fairs in Turin and Rome, Roberto Longhi's historically grounded view of Futurism, architectural projects in Fascist Rome and the interwar reception of Adolfo Wildt and Lucio Fontana's sculpture. Featuring a wealth of visual materials, Baroquemania offers a fresh look at a central aspect of Italy's modern art.
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526153173/baroquemania/
Journal Articles by Laura Moure Cecchini
Studi di Memofonte, 2023
Gli anni Cinquanta rappresentano un momento di apertura internazionale della Biennale di Venezia,... more Gli anni Cinquanta rappresentano un momento di apertura internazionale della Biennale di Venezia, soprattutto per quanto riguarda la presenza di paesi considerati «latinoamericani»: una classificazione assai controversa perché sviluppatasi in Europa piuttosto che in questa regione, perché raccoglie nazioni con storie e lingue diverse, e perché carica di connotazioni coloniali e imperialistiche, ma che dato il suo uso comune in italiano come tale verrà utilizzata in questo articolo 1. Nel 1950, Argentina (per la seconda volta), Messico, Brasile e Colombia (per la prima) partecipano alla Biennale. Nel 1952 sono presenti per la prima volta Cuba, Bolivia e Guatemala, mentre nel 1954 lo sono anche Uruguay (il cui padiglione sarà il primo permanente di un paese latinoamericano) e Venezuela 2. Anche se non tutte queste nazioni saranno rappresentate in ogni edizione, la loro presenza rappresenta un importante passo in avanti nella globalizzazione della Biennale. Malgrado queste iniziative, ancora oggi la presenza dell'arte latinoamericana all'esposizione sembra essere provvisoria e occasionale. Nell'edizione 2022 erano presenti dieci dei ventun paesi dell'America Latina, ma solo tre (Brasile, Uruguay e Venezuela) avevano un padiglione permanente in quella che è ancora la sede più prestigiosa: i Giardini 3. Argentina, Cile, Messico e Perù erano all'Arsenale, nella Sala d'Armi o nelle Artiglierie. Bolivia, Guatemala e Cuba avevano un padiglione in sedi temporanee sparse per la città. Eppure, gli artisti latinoamericani, malgrado la predilezione dell'istituzione per quelli europei e nordamericani, sono stati presenti alla Biennale fin dai primordi della sua storia-e se i molteplici progetti per coinvolgerli ulteriormente fossero andati a buon fine, lo sarebbero stati ancora di più 4. I primi anni della sua storia-ma soprattutto il periodo tra le due guerre mondiali, in particolare dopo l'ascesa del fascismo-furono infatti segnati da molteplici tentativi finalizzati a creare rappresentazioni nazionali permanenti per artisti latinoamericani. Le prossime pagine raccontano questi tentativi e il loro fallimento, così come vengono raccontati nei documenti (molti inediti) presenti all'Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee (ASAC) alla Biennale di Venezia. Artisti latinoamericani nelle prime Biennali Non è compito facile ricostruire la presenza di artisti latinoamericani alla Biennale di Venezia. Nei primi anni della sua storia non sempre i cataloghi riportavano la nazionalità o il luogo di nascita degli artisti partecipanti. Inoltre, mentre nella maggior parte dei paesi del continente americano vige sia lo ius sanguinis (cittadinanza per discendenza) che lo ius soli (cittadinanza per diritto di nascita), in Italia solo il primo era (ed è) ancora valido. Pertanto, molti di coloro che per gli autori italiani del catalogo erano europei in quanto figli di europei, per la legge dei loro paesi di nascita L'autrice ringrazia Giovanni Bianchi, Mario Sartor e Pierpaolo Luderin per i suggerimenti di ricerca. 1 Per la storia e i problemi concettuali dell'idea di '
Oxford Art Journal, 2022
In 1931, Argentine artist Victor Cúnsolo painted a large still life titled Tradition (Fig. 1). 1 ... more In 1931, Argentine artist Victor Cúnsolo painted a large still life titled Tradition (Fig. 1). 1 Tradition depicts an issue of Augusta, one of the first Argentine journals exclusively devoted to art, perilously perched on a table and surrounded by writing and painting implements, art books, and religious figurines. Augusta (1918-1920) was founded by photographer and gallery owner Franz van Riel, who in 1924 rented out some of his gallery's rooms in Buenos Aires's bustling Calle Florida to Amigos del Arte (Friends of Art), an élite art association that figures prominently in the following pages. 2 Tradition alludes in two other ways to Amigos del Arte's politically ambivalent activities of 1930: at the left, an edition of José Hernández's epic gauchesco poem Martín Fierro (1872), a touchstone of Argentine national identity (this particular edition was financed by Amigos del Arte and illustrated by leftist engraver Arturo Bellocq) 3 ; and at the right, the catalogue of an exhibition of the Novecento Italiano (Italian Twentieth-Century) art group, which emerged and thrived under the Italian Fascist regime. The show opened at Amigos del Arte on 14 September and closed on 4 October 1930. 4 The Novecento Italiano show, then, opened just a week after the Fascist-inspired military coup of General José Félix Uriburu-a coincidence that gave a serendipitous political relevance to an exhibition that at first had been carefully planned to conceal any evident associations with Fascism. This show's organisation required almost four years of tortuous transatlantic negotiations between cultural players based in Argentina and Italy. Some of them, such as critic Margherita Sarfatti and artists Ardengo Soffici and Emilio Pettoruti, were internationally recognised figures of the interwar artistic milieu. Others were less well-known but equally crucial: journalists Lamberti Sorrentino and Sandro Volta, editor Sandro Piantanida, and businessman Giovanni Rolleri, all born in Italy but based in Argentina. While the show was the result of these actors' tireless work, Sarfatti's contribution must be singled out. She chose many of the paintings and rallied Novecento artists when their enthusiasm for an overseas show dwindled. She also travelled to South America and lectured in Argentina and Uruguay, where the show continued in a reduced form after it closed in Buenos Aires (Fig. 2). 5 Sarfatti's curatorial decisions and reputation helped the Buenos Aires exhibition garner recognition among Argentines for its high quality. She was, above all, instrumental in framing this exhibition to appeal, first and foremost, to Argentine economic and cultural élites, as the 'de facto ambassador of Italian art abroad', in the words of Francesca Cavarocchi. 6 She did this by emphasising the fascist ideology of Latinità (Latinity)-the ostensibly shared cultural heritage of Italy and Argentina-in her introduction to the catalogue and in multiple press interviews on both sides of the Atlantic. 7
Modern Italy, 2022
Without any pretence of exhaustiveness, we have gathered here a preliminary bibliography (mostly ... more Without any pretence of exhaustiveness, we have gathered here a preliminary bibliography (mostly in Italian and English) that complements the articles in this issue. We hope it can be a useful resource for the readers of Modern Italy who are interested in delving further into the material and visual culture of Italian colonialism.
Visual and Material Legacies of Fascist Colonialism, special issue of Modern Italy, 2022
In this special issue of Modern Italy, four early-career scholars examine how the study of object... more In this special issue of Modern Italy, four early-career scholars examine how the study of objects and images rooted in Fascist imperialist history enables a sustained interrogation of Italy's colonial imaginary. Their articles explore the diverse possibilities offered by the study of visual and material culture for scholars of imperialism, as it is precisely this realm of visual and material culture that emerges as a site of negotiation in which different individuals and constituencies contended with the regime's ideology. Visual and Material Legacies of Fascist Colonialism is by no means the first scholarly project to interrogate the relationship between the aesthetic field and the Fascist colonial project. Pioneering studies in different disciplinary fields, as well as contemporary art projects, have addressed the role of architecture, cinema, art and exhibitions in underpinning colonial ideology under the Fascist regime. We have added an extensive (but by no means exhaustive) thematic bibliography on these studies at the end of our introduction. While building upon the aforementioned scholarship, the aim of this special issue (perhaps one of the most heavily illustrated ever published by Modern Italy) is to highlight how the complementary methodologies of visual and material studies, in tandem, can be used to unpack the colonial imaginary of Fascist Italy. In the next few pages, we probe this approach and apply it to two case studies. We hope that this special issue will act as an invitation to scholars to adopt such productive partnership of visual and material studies for the study of other subjects pertaining to Italian colonialism. Fascist colonialism and its legacies Italy was already a colonial power when Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922. In 1882 Assab Bay on the Red Sea became Italy's first overseas territory. Eritrea was militarily occupied three years later and Somalia in the 1890sthe former became Italy's first official colony in 1890. In 1901, in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising, Italy also gained a share of the European concession in Tianjin, China. But until the ascent of Fascism, Italy's most important colony was Libya, which it invaded in 1911. The following year, Italy also occupied the Dodecanese Islands.
Diego Rivera's identity as a Mexican played a fundamental role in the construction of his artisti... more Diego Rivera's identity as a Mexican played a fundamental role in the construction of his artistic style and persona. Indeed, most of his murals include references to Mexican folk and indigenous art, and to the Aztec and Mayan past-depicted as a peaceful utopia contrasting with the violence of the Spanish Conquest. Rivera was also an important collector of pre-Colombiana, acquiring more than sixty thousand such objects, now housed in the museum in Mexico City that he conceived and created for his collection. 1 Also significant in this regard is that when he was living in Europe in his late twenties and early thirties Rivera incorporated Mexican folk motifs in some of his modernist easel paintings. In My Art, My Life-the memoir he wrote with Gladys March from 1944 until his death in 1957-Rivera said that all the paintings he made in Paris in the 1910s "distinctly show the influence of the pre-Conquest tradition of Mexican art. Even the landscapes I did from life in Europe were essentially Mexican in feeling." 2 An exhibition organized in New York City in 1916 by Marius de Zayas, a Mexican caricaturist, writer, and art dealer, a close associate of Alfred Stieglitz, and a pivotal figure in introducing modern art to the United States, appears to confirm this retroactive assessment (fig. 1).
Between 1913 and 1914, the connoisseur and Baroque expert (then a young doctoral student) Roberto... more Between 1913 and 1914, the connoisseur and Baroque expert (then a young doctoral student) Roberto Longhi wrote two texts on the Futurists. Longhi used Heinrich Wölfflin’s formalist categories, arguing that the relation between Futurism and Cubism mirrored that of the Baroque and the Renaissance. Through formalist categories, Longhi explained Futurism’s innovation as heir to the Baroque and as the source of a specifically Italian aesthetics. Like other art historians of his time, Longhi analyzed the aesthetics of the Italian Baroque and of Futurism through the tropes of “Latinity” versus “Germanity,” explaining the differences between art produced in the Mediterranean basin and that in German-speaking countries as stemming from two opposed ethnic essences. Although he avoided chauvinistic proclamations and racial terminology I will argue that Longhi’s 1913-1914 readings of the avant-garde engaged in conversations about national identity, the place of Italy in the history of modern art, and the geopolitical aspirations of Italy on the eve of World War I.
Selva: A Journal of the History of Art
Romeo Toninelli was a key figure in the organization of Twentieth-Century Italian Art, and given ... more Romeo Toninelli was a key figure in the organization of Twentieth-Century Italian Art, and given the official title of Executive Secretary for the Exhibition in Italy. An Italian art dealer, editor, and collector with an early career as a textile industrialist, Toninelli was not part of the artistic and cultural establishment during the Fascist ventennio. This was an asset in the eyes of the James Thrall Soby and Alfred H. Barr, Jr., who wanted the exhibition to signal the rebirth of Italian art after the presumed break represented by the Fascist regime. Whether Toninelli agreed with this approach we do not know, but he played a major part in the tortuous transatlantic organization of the show. He acted as the intermediary between MoMA curators and Italian dealers, collectors, and artists, securing loans and paying for the shipping of the artworks. He
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Books by Laura Moure Cecchini
Harvard University, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Laura Moure Cecchini (Università di Padova) will present her new book:
BAROQUEMANIA: ITALIAN VISUAL CULTURE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 1898-1945
Respondent: GUIDO GUERRA
Everybody is welcome. Seating is limited.
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526153173/baroquemania/
Journal Articles by Laura Moure Cecchini
Harvard University, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Laura Moure Cecchini (Università di Padova) will present her new book:
BAROQUEMANIA: ITALIAN VISUAL CULTURE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY 1898-1945
Respondent: GUIDO GUERRA
Everybody is welcome. Seating is limited.
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526153173/baroquemania/
I analyze how two works by Agnetti, La macchina drogata (1968) and NEG (1970), illustrate his anxiety about alienation by interrupting the regular functioning of technology. I also examine how this strategy questions the ideological bases of industrial design, and I elaborate on the relation between Agnetti’s concern with alienation, and the analyses of estrangement by Eco and the Italian critic Gillo Dorfles. While I am not suggesting that Agnetti “materialized” or “illustrated” the theories of Eco and Dorfles, whose work he most certainly knew but never explicitly quoted, striking coincidences exist between their thought and Agnetti’s diagnosis of contemporary alienation. Such similarities testify to a common disquiet in the Milanese artistic and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and 1970s, revealing increasing skepticism about unbridled industrial development.
monuments clearly bearing a Fascist imprint but also via the persistence of Fascist-era values and political rhetoric which has continued, in a more or less explicit way, throughout the republican period, despite anti-Fascist principles being deeply rooted in the Italian constitution and its society and culture. The arts have long reflected this difficult Fascist legacy and suspended memory of a phenomenon that left a traumatic mark on twentieth century Italian and European history. This volume constitutes a first analytical and comparative attempt to analyse the artistic work which has cast a critical eye – in the visual arts and film, theatre, performance art and literature – on this inconvenient past from the post-war period to the present day. It is work of art as site of a theoretical re-working of traumatic memory, the co-presence of different historical times, the “concretion” of certain obsessively repeated symbols and an incessant reappearance of Fascism’s semantic and ideological sphere – and its imperial colonialism – as a transcendental rather than historical object.
https://vimeo.com/961191836