Contemporary Italian Art

The course explores the works of those artists who, over half a century, have made the art of today and constructed the relationship between artists and the city of Florence in the Italian context. Emphasis is placed on comparing traditional, medieval, Renaissance art and the extent to which efforts have succeeded in developing an original approach to creativity. The course will involve lectures (a survey of art in Tuscany, including abstract experiences, Italian pop art, minimal art, poesia visiva, trans-avant-gardism and the present-day tendencies of figurative art), and fact-finding visits to artists? ateliers where course participants are encouraged to ask questions. For example, which factors led artists towards certain decisions, which cultural forces led artists to adopt certain forms, etc. The course alternates between fieldwork visiting galleries and ateliers and carrying out interpretative analyzes of the fieldwork in the classroom. the course encourages contact with the living tissue of art. The Florence creative scene, vibrant today but rooted in history, is varied and complex; this course gives the student the opportunity to establish direct, informed contact with it.