Dear Research Diary,

We didn’t have class all week. I found some nice sources on the internet. Firstly, on Flash Art there was Celant’s Notes for a Guerilla War. I still need to read it. There was also the press release for a show based on it at MACBA last year, so fortunately I speak Catalan since I couldn’t find the English version. I’m really going to try to find the “mistakes” that Christov-Bakargiev found in Celant’s interpretation of Grotowski. 

Dear Research Diary,

I have finished reading Towards a Poor Theatre and written the summary for it. I think I want to compare this next to Celant’s Notes for a Guerilla Warfare so I’ll try to see if I can find this online anywhere, or maybe at the BNC! I was also thinking about exploring more in depth the changes and continuities in Celant’s manifestoes. He seems sometimes to be at odds with the artists. At the end I think part of the reason they break away is because they don’t want to be chained to Celant’s thought and essays. Plus all the artists went on to move to the states or just abroad, and “selling out” signed to huge galleries and being paid for their temporal works. I don’t think they felt the way that Celant did in a Szeeman-esque shamanism of the artist. Or even if they initially did, we all know that Manzoni and Pistoletto at least were already big in the art world before being associated with AP. Plus this is over 10 years after the Economic Miracle and there is little that can be done through art to change the world. Once AP splintered apart everyone went on to create material works. 

I’ve been taking notes on Grotowsky’s Towards a Poor Theatre. I can see where Celant drew the inspiration for his own Arte Povera manifesto. There is a lot of spiritual language here, in his theatrical laboratory in Poland, Grotowsky intended to search for the inner innate actor. To achieve this a method was developed of skills to (forget the id?) attain pure acting. Just like the materials of AP. Also a bit Beuys-y. He tries to erase the notion of separation between actor and audience, by having no stage, and incorporating the audience into the architecture. Man – Art relationship was a big concern in AP as well………………….. ~~~~~ 

Dear Research Diary,

Today in class Ilaira Gianni came to speak about her research experience and give us advice on ours. It all seemed very interesting, exploring Bauhaus through theatre, and nostalgia in contemporary art. I have already spoken to her about my project and she has given me some useful information.

I was a little bit disturbed in class because conversation always draws towards the difficulties of writing about contemporary art. Because writing about your own time is more theoretically risky than writing about past eras. I don’t understand why this has come up so many times. I did not choose my topic at random because I thought that writing about contemporary art would be “cool,” in fact Arte Povera is not even that contemporary, it’s 40 years ago not 2.

I picked the topic because I truly believe that I am best prepared and most interested in this topic. In class we have told everyone about the progress in our research but nobody has ever really asked why we chose them. I think if you take into account that I am an Art History major, a Philosphy minor, and an Italian Studies minor, it makes perfect sense to do this topic. I would feel completely unprepared to do a Renaissance, Medieval, or Ancient topic considering I have taken two renaissance classes, no medieval, and one on Ancient Greek art. On the other hand, I have taken Contemporary, Curating, Modern, Methods, and not to mention Modern Italian History, Italian Politics, Italian Cinema, Modern Philosophy. I have been writing reviews of contemporary art shows in Rome for a year and a half. Just because one person said JCU students aren’t qualified to write contemporary  theses, all that means is that they made a generalization about our art histories and made a judgment but didn’t bother to take into account our individual interests and fortes. It might seem hard to believe that a 20 year old student knows a lot about modern and contemporary philosophy, but I love it and I read it for fun, I know absolutely nothing about the bible.

I was very disturbed by this. But I understand why people would be concerned.

Dear Research Diary,

I have been very busy studying for midterms and I haven’t had the chance to write or do much research. I can’t think about my project right now because I need to be thinking about other things for my tests and presentations. 

Dear Research Diary,

I finished reading Christov’s Summary, and overall it has provided a lot of information and opened paths for further research. Now there are chapters dedicated to each individual artist and particular pieces and shows. Most important are the connections between the four cities of Turin, Rome, Genoa, and Milan and how all of the artists found each other working on similar themes.

Overall it seems kind of frantic, unorganized, but it makes as much sense as anything in Italy. It seems that the terrorism of the 1970’s killed off the movement in a way, since the artists started to doubt their validity of art commenting politically. I need to read the texts by Celant. 

Dear Research Diary,

yesterday I took intensive notes for 10 more pages of Christov-Bakargiev’s book. It started to speak more specifically of events held in Genoa, Rome, and Turin. Kounellis and Pascali are the two Roman artists while Celant and Prini come from Genoa an most of the others including Pistoletto, Merz and Melissa Merz, Anselmo, Boetti, etc.. come from Turin. The Economic Miracle, Southern Migration, Industrial expansion of Turin, the FIAT factory are important drives for a changing city of rapidly changing values.

Learned that Rome was very important in the international art world during the 50’s, watched La Dolce Vita which shows this whole ambiance which arose with the Economic Miralce and Roma Capitale. I’m thinking I’ll summarize a chapter out of Eco’s book rather than the rest of Christov’s summary. I need a change of pace and that one is funny and intellectually charged. I think there’s a Fluxus show at Circolo degli Artisti on Tuesday. I’ll see what that’s all about.