Università Roma Tre

A PLURALISTIC MODERNITY

The course introduces to the historical developments and to the key personalities of modernist art - from the modernist avant-gardes to the 1960s -, focusing on themes such as the relationship with technology and new media (photography, cinema, television), with the political and social landscape, the natural and urban spaces, etc. The analysis of these topics will also provide the basic methodology for the study of the different media that characterize twentieth-century art, providing the critical tools necessary for the reading of different types of works of art.

Federica Rovati, L’arte del primo Novecento, Einaudi 2015
Stephen Kern, Il tempo e lo spazio, Il Mulino 2007: capitoli 4: Il futuro; 5: La velocità; 6: La natura dello spazio, pp. 117-226
Philippe Dubois, L'atto fotografico, Urbino 2009, pp. 25-108
Jonathan Crary, Le tecniche dell'osservatore. Visione e modernità nel XIX secolo, Einaudi 2013, capitolo 2, pp. 29-70; capitolo 4, pp. 102-142

The course aims to retrace the relationships between the artistic object and the historical environment from the avant-garde to the contemporary, in a methodological comparison between history, art theory and visual studies. Starting from the questioning of the frame in painting and the pedestal in sculpture, we will deepen the passage from the object to the environment, the escape of the artistic intervention from the spaces in charge of art from nature and into the public space - from Land Art to different practices of social participation - up to the analysis of installations and immersive environments that produce engaging and interactive physical experiences thanks to the use of new technologies.
We will focus on genealogies and theoretical questions useful to frame:
- problems related to the dematerialization of the work in time and site specific installations;
- the exhibition as an immersive device with the treatment of crucial historical moments such as the surrealist exhibitions or the exhibitions Lo Spazio dell’Immagine (Foligno, Palazzo Trinci, 1967) and Ambiente Arte. From Futurism to Body Art, curated by Germano Celant (Venice Biennale 1976);
- the dimension of spectatoriality in the transition from contemplative fruition to multisensory participation and interaction.

1) D. Riout, L’arte del ventesimo secolo. Protagonisti, temi, correnti, Einaudi, Torino 2002

2) F. Poli, F. Bernardelli, Mettere in scena l’arte contemporanea. Dallo spazio dell’opera allo spazio intorno all’opera, Johan & Levi, Milano 2016

3) Handout of critical texts will be made available at the end of the course.

4) Online gathering of images projected during lectures (available at the end of the course for attending and not attending).

Non attending will integrate with:
5) F. Rovati, L’arte del primo Novecento, Einaudi, Torino 2015.