Rappresent-Azione. Arte Povera and Italian Theory
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2025-06-21
Author(s)
Abstract
Between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, Turin has been the setting of a unique and multifaceted interplay between artistic practice and conceptual theory. To further complicate the picture, in the same years the city was traversed by political tensions that brought together not only factory workers and university students, but also artists, gallerists and critics. The paper investigates the events occurred in Turin in that timeframe, aiming at showing the ways in which – more or less tacitly – the birth of Arte Povera (1967) was influenced by the aesthetic and political theories that were being developed in the same context by theorists and philosophers, while, in turn, the activities of the artists who participated in the movement had the ability to shape, to some extent, the conceptual thought of thinkers working in their vicinity. By focusing on the work of two artists in particular, Giuseppe Penone and Piero Gilardi (whose practices shared many theoretical points while diverging profoundly in motivations and results), I will consider the vexata quaestio of the relationships between art and life, and of whether the former should be framed as a mere representation of the latter. Luigi Pareyson’s theory of formativity (first outlined in 1954 and refined throughout the 1960s) along with Umberto Eco’s theory of The Open Work (1962), on the one hand, and the political thought developed in the same years by primo and secondo Operaismo (mainly by Mario Tronti and Toni Negri/Michael Hardt respectively), on the other, dealt extensively and critically with the status and role of representation – which is echoed in the poveristi’s artistic production and its anti-representationalism. Conversely, as will be shown by closely examining specific case studies, such artistic production served not only to corroborate the theoretical positions of aesthetic and political philosophy, but also, time and again, to challenge them, mold them, develop them in more radical directions.
Language
English (United States)
Keywords
Italian theory
Arte Povera
Operaismo
1968
Italian aesthetics
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Event Title
Resonances: Art as the Synergy of Practice and Theory
Event Location
Valid World Hall, Barcelona
Event Date
21.06.2025
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Additional Information
Jointly organized by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Pécs