Well, that's all

The semester is over. I am sitting in the library 24/7 writing papers. Listening to Tosca on repeat.
I am working diligently on this Thesis Foundation Portfolio. I hope I didn't misplace anything =/

My plans for the winter break are to order some books online from my "to read" list on this portfolio and get through a chunk of pages there. 

Dear Research Diary,
Yesterday I went to MACRO to see the portion of the archive of Fabio Sargentini and the library. The archive was amazing. It had letter correspondences between Sargentini and numerous artists, both Poveristi and huge international names, also between him and Szeeman for When Attitude Becomes Form. There were so many pictures of gallery events and of people together, I think it will be incredibly useful for mapping out what sort of interactions were happening between the artists in this period of time.
The question it raised for me was what was happening before 67? Before Kounellis or Pascali were considered Arte Povera. I want to see what they were trying to do, or trying to achieve and how they became a part of the movement.
I also visited the library and seems a little bit strict. They don't have a catalogue that is accessible and you need to make an appointment with them for date and time. Then you go with the subject and they can help you. I don't really like that system but it may be useful.
I also found a great book in the bookshop about L'Attico from 66 to 78. I couldn't resist buying it, plus if I hadn't and couldn't find it again it would have been horrible.

Dear Research Diary,
I had a revelatory moment last night. As I was speaking with my roommate about my Italian Cinema class I thought of the perfect title for my thesis. Of course this is liable to change since Bolker says it's one of the last steps of the process, but this might be good to put on the form that we need to submit soon to the registrar.
Roma Citta Povera: the Roman Poveristi
Bingo!
After having written a bit about theory and analyzing Celant's writings, I think it would be interesting to see the effect on the movement after it was completely out of Celant's control. In fact the point is that there is no control, so it should theoretically work perfectly, but doesn't this inherently put it in the stage of dissolution?
From Rome I think the individuality of the artists is much more apparent from the start to the end. Kounellis, Pascali, and Boetti are extremely different. Plus Bonito Oliva only started working with them later so there is also the effect of the institution, and you have Sargentini and L'Attico.
Hopefully tomorrow the bus wont take forever to get to the GNAM for the library visit.
Also, I am having a problem with the library visit because Professor Gianni informed me that currently most of the Attico Archive is in an exhibition at MACRO so I may just go to the MACRO library, or just a comfortable library around here like the Biblioteca dell Senato just to know another convenient place to go for silence and concentration, those are always good to know about.

Dear Research Diary,
I am very pleased because I made a huge mistake and scheduled a meeting with Professor Gianni on December 3rd, the same day as the GNAM library visit. Lukcily it's scheduled at an early hour and I will be able to make both appointments. I might have already mentioned that I am having a problem meeting regularly with my advidsor because we are both very busy, so that was really the only reason why I was worried, we have been putting this meeting off for a while now.
This morning I looked at the works of Alighiero Boetti an found that he is more interested in the relationship between the natural and the artificial. This can be found in almost all of his works including Il che prendo il sole a Torino il 19 gennaio 1969 in which his body is made of hand-sized balls of fast-drying cement molded to the shape of the interior of his hand. It is contrasted with the soft and bright colored butterfly resting on his nose.

Mappa

Il che prendo il sole a Torino il 19 gennaio 1969

His most known piece is his series of  Mappa which is a map of the world with the national flag cut to the shape of each country.

Dear Research Diary,

Yesterday I read a chapter on Giovanni Anselmo following professor Dohna’s advice of taking a good look at a couple of artworks and trying to figure out how each artist individually fits into the movement. The opening part said that Arte Povera did not in reality have a manifesto, Celant’s work is only considered that way in the light of its context in the avant-garde form. In reality they were only essays for exhibitions which served the purpose of a traditional manifesto by outlining basic trends that unify the movement as a whole. Anselmo fits into the category of somebody who deals with the thread of the natural and the artificial and the invisibility of natural forces within consumer society and the world of production. His most notable works are Scultura che mangia, Senza Titolo (plexiglass and iron bar) and Torsione which all embody the forces of nature which help the artist, and therefore he considers them “materials” in his work. 

Senza Titolo, the rock shows potential energy, gravity will be shown if it falls.

Dear Research Diary,

My trip went well and was semi-related to my thesis, in a very broad way. I was visiting Manifesta 8 “Dialogue with Northern Africa.” Everything was basically video art. It was pretty nice, actually not related at all, nevermind. Meanwhile I got responses from professor Gianni and professor Dohna saying they would read my work and comment on it. I think I am meeting tomorrow with professor Gianni and we can talk about what I wrote as well as my plans for the future, the remaining three weeks here and during the winter break when I will be back in the USA. I already know there is a show about Pistoletto in the Philadelphia Museum of Art which I can’t miss. It’s curated by the new director of the MAXXI so there should be some good pieces there. I need to spend this entire week catching up on work from Thanksgiving work, so I’ll try to place some more readings and summaries where I can fit them. I would also like to conduct an interview at some time before the semester ends, either with a gallerist at L’Attico or someone who was involved in the AP scene, but it might be difficult to schedule with finals coming up. I also need to conquer my own library for this course and I think I will make that the archive of L’Attico since they definitely have lots of things which I must read. I’ll try to plan that for either this weekend or next week since we have Wednesday off of school. I’m so stressed with all the papers I need to write now and the short time until winter break I hope I don’t get sick from it all!!!!!!

Dear Research Diary,

I am not going to be able to write for the next week because I am going on vacation. I will be spending some time in Murcia to see Manifesta 8 so it is very useful time. I will not have a computer or internet access. I think I lost some entries, they are not here, they disappeared, I don’t know what is happening. Unfortunately I will not be in class today because I thought my plane left later than it does. See you next week.