Dear Research Diary,

I went to Piazza Venezia on Monday and read Celant’s Arte Povera. Yesterday Professor Dohna came to present her research to the class. It was very intriguing. She works mostly on the theoretical aspects of Art History, methods of analysis and communication. She applies modern theory to Renaissance works, because it is important for a good theory to be universal and not only fit into a certain time period. Her theory was that colors have an intrinsic significance which she dubs “iconosophy” in contrast to iconography which can be figured out by reading period texts to see what certain signs mean to a Medieval or Renaissance observer. Iconosophy on the other hand cannot be put into words because it is not a verbal intellectual communication, but a sensual impact. She contrasted Albrecht Durer’s Allegory of Death and Mark Rothko’s Houston Chapel, both works dealing with the subject of death. It’s a good comparison because Durer’s woodblock print is black and white but is extremely fine in detail. Therefore people may find it easier to describe due to the fact that it contains some sort of Imitatio. Rothko on the other hand is pure color and gradations, but it is able to make viewers go through death in order to reach joy. Much like a Medieval icon of the Cruxifixion which would make viewers feel suffering and pain for Christ only to arrive at the conclusion of joy because he was their salvation, the promise of eternal joy.

I think the most important part of this to come away with is that theory is crucial but it doesn’t have to be simply memorized and learned but really applied, and not necessarily to that which it is about.

I also wrote the assignment Professor Gianni gave to me, some pages about the socio-political situation which Arte Povera finds itself in. With some artistic background in which I included Lucio Fontana, the Situationists, and the ICA and Pop Art. 

Dear Research Diary,

I spent all day yesterday at the Frohring library doing various projects. I started working on the assignment that Professor Gianni gave me which is to outline the main historical events taking place in the late 60’s in Italy. I got a couple of very useful sources, I found an Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture in the Reference section which would be great to just have around. I wrote a bit on Situationism, born out of French Lettrism and CoBrA, which was a highly politicized art. They formed some experimental research studios in northern Italy and this is essentially where Gruppo 63 came from, which was so in contact with the AP artists.

Dear Research Diary,

Yesterday I worked all day so I didn’t do much related to my thesis. I found Marshall McLuhan’s book The Medium is the Massage and read that in about half an hour, it was really beautiful. He has been mentioned many times as one of AP’s influences from a philosophical/semiotic point. He works mainly with media theory and how technology influences the workings of the human mind. His hypothesis is that we attempt to use today’s technology to fill the role of yesterday’s technology or vice versa. So there is a hesitance to plunge into the future. One part I found particularly interesting was one of the pages on children and education, which said that children are living in two worlds, one is the educational world still kept in 19^th century rigidity of factory effectiveness and censorship, and the other is the “adult world” of television in which children can receive the same information at the same moment as their parents. Neither of these worlds encourage a child to grow up.

This might seem a little bit off topic originally, but it is absolutely not. McLuhan was a huge name in the late 60’s and it’s no coincidence that this title and his other main work Understanding Media were published just before 67’ and probably has a lot to do with the presentation of performance that was made in private.

Dear Research Diary,

Yesterday I finally got my library card to BiASA! I had used the library (Bibliioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte) already for two papers. My first paper on Arte Povera, and my honors paper for Venetian Art. It was nice to go again though because they changed the whole system. When I had been there we still had to sign in with an ID every time and get our paper day pass that we had to return at the end of the day with all the check marks that we had returned our books. After visiting the library I stayed a little bit extra to find some nice books. I had already found Celant’s Arte Povera and some other basic texts, but this time I got out Arte Povera in collezione which has four essential essays I need to read or re-read. So it’s very useful to know I can just go in there now, and it’s right there on the open shelves.

I learned that Ammann doesn’t know what gravity is.

Later I went to the MAXXI with Alex and it was a wonderful visit. I hadn’t seen it yet but they have lots of amazing works and many many exemplars from AP. My favorite was probably the leather room by Giuseppe Pennone. Everything was very organic and strange. I wish I didn’t constantly have a cold so I could have smelled the leather and sap. Also in here was a work by Zorio, of a an ancient column crushing the inner tube of a tire, Three Rivers by Pascali and Mario Merz’s igloo with the Fibonacci sequence. Also, I made it just in time to catch Achille Bonito Oliva’s show of De Dominicis. He was very much in dialogue with arte povera but not a part of it. It’s interesting to think of why Celant chose the artists he did when there was so much going on outside, de Dominicis and Calzolari etc…

Anyway MAXXI was so big that I got “museum feet” for the first time in so long.

Dear Research Diary,

Quite some things have happened since my last entry, it has been a wonderful day and a half.

First was my meeting with Yvonne Dohna. She was enthusiastic about my project, she seems to really admire Kounellis. She told she doesn’t want to get relegated to the type of second reader that simply reads it at the end, she wants to be equally involved as the first reader. I think this will be good because each one of my readers has a very specific perspective, so having two critiques and comments on each chapter will probably help balance them so that the work remains “mine” in a sense. She thought the idea of tracking Celant’s manifestoes seems like it has already been done, so I need to find some important point to make. She left me with the question “what novita was created with the movement.” This is good because I don’t see much of one, I see it more as a continuity.

Secondly, I read the article about the lecture series at MACBA and I wish I had attended this one. Celant apparently presented two of his important shows, one from 1967 and the other from the Venice Biennial 1976. This was part of a series about the history of exhibitions. The groundbreaking of these exhibitions was the non-materiality and the associations he drew between the artists represented. Actually I didn’t really get the point of it other than appreciating the informative part of it, there was no analysis and nothing that new.

Also, I spoke with Federica Capoferri who teaches Italian Cinema. I had asked to speak specifically with her about Pier Paolo Pasolini and his influence on the movement, since it was he who named the “social responsibility of art.” I think I’m going to write my paper for her class on his films of the 1960’s. The first thing she mentioned was Uccellacci e Uccellini DUH! MY FAVORITE FILM. THE FRANCISCANS! How could I be so stupid? OF COURSE. So that was groundbreaking, she also gave me some articles about Pasolini particularly speaking about Arte Povera so those will be helpful.

Today in class we went over the internet tools and I can’t wait to start using Zotero. 

Dear Research Diary,

Yesterday I had a meeting with Ilaria Gianni. We talked about where I am right now with my research and things I should do at this point. I told her I read Notes on Guerrilla War in Conjunction with Towards a Poor Theatre and we discussed the differences, she told me to write a short paper about the socio-political ambiance of Italy at the end of the 60’s. I’ve already done this a thousand times so I’ll just take it from my head now. I was also speaking to her about the apparent differences eye-to-eye between Celant and the artists as he continued writing manifestoes and how I could possibly do something along the lines of interviewing the artists and trying to see how they felt about the situation. Because my hypothesis right now is that Notes for a Guerrilla war was kind of a death sentence in and of itself. It forced Celant to keep writing more manifestoes and tying the group together so that they couldn’t diverge on their own exploratory paths. No one can stand this sort of thing so naturally it broke apart. With the added pressures of Italian terrorism and seeing that their anti-market works were regardless, being absorbed easily into the market. Plus a figure like Pistoletto who was already a name couldn’t tag behind Celant for very long. 

Dear Research Diary,

Tomorrow I will meet with Ilaria Gianni to discuss the topic. I have also e-mailed professor Capoferri and professor Dohna who I will meet with in the next week or so. Read Guerrilla Warfare and concluded that Celant is only missing the spiritual roots, which he must have been perfectly aware of but used to his own political aims. As art had entered a new “political responsibility.” I think the artists themselves draw more heavily upon the spiritual basis of Grotowski but it’s not explicit in this first manifesto.