Title in modern art: a survey of the italian late 20th century

CYCLE: Ricerche in corso
SPEAKER: Flavio Fergonzi
DATE: Thursday, May 7, 6:00 PM

What role does the title play in the full meaning of a work of art? What intentions drive an artist during the naming process? What are the lexical and cultural sources for a work's title? At what point in the inventive and execution process is the title decided by the artist? How does the title affect the work’s public reception, its critical fortune, and its history? This lecture attempts to provide answers to these questions by examining Italian art from the end of World War II to the 1960s, focusing on non-representational works or those of difficult visual decipherability, where the title can provide a decisive key to reading and interpretation.

Flavio Fergonzi is Full Professor of History of Contemporary Art at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. His research has addressed 19th and 20th-century sculpture, the language of 20th-century Italian art criticism, international sources for the Italian artistic avant-garde, and the relationship between American and Italian art in the post-war period. He is currently studying the theme of title attribution in artworks of the late 20th century.