My main research fields are Germany and Italy's political and cultural history in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, particularly Fascism, the history of Italian Futurism and other European avant-gardes. I was awarded a Global Marie Sklodowska-Curie (Individual Fellowship, Horizon 2020) for the project: The Machine as a Code of Political and social reorganisation in Western Europe and Russia before and after the First World War. Address: Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
... p. 10). 5 Com'è noto, il contrasto tra stato prussiano e Chiesa cattolica, durato dal 18... more ... p. 10). 5 Com'è noto, il contrasto tra stato prussiano e Chiesa cattolica, durato dal 1871 al 1887, fu chiamato da Rudolf Virchow in un pamphlet elettorale «lotta per la cultura». Esso fu gestito da Page 3. rsp 1/98 5 FORME PARTITICO ...
This introduction specifies the main arguments of the book explaining the political meaning of th... more This introduction specifies the main arguments of the book explaining the political meaning of the concept of modernism. The aim is not to propose a new periodization through which to read the political modernity. Our aim is rather to describe the process of a new politicization resulting by the interlacement of art and politics. The traces of modernism are a pattern of the complex and difficult processing of the crisis of conscience in the passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century which is announced by the obsessive presence of concepts like New Man, Machine, Total State, Avant-gard, Plan
After the First World War and the October Revolution, Europe and Russia experienced an intense, i... more After the First World War and the October Revolution, Europe and Russia experienced an intense, intertwined crisis. This paper aims to reconstruct the international dimension of this situation in Italy before Fascism rose to power between 1919 and 1922. In particular, it concentrates on two "Left-futurists", Vinicio Paladini and Ivo Pannaggi, who were influenced by the Soviet Revolution and the ideas of Alexandr Bogdanov and Anatolij Lunačarskij, the future Soviet People's Commissar. It also focuses on the review "Vešč/Gegenstand/Objet", which El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg founded in Berlin in 1922, and its entanglements with French Purism and Pannaggi.
Fabio Benzi, Renske Cohen Tervaert (ed.), Futurism & Europe. The Aesthetics of a New World, exh.cat. Otterlo (Kröller-Müller Museum), published by Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo/Tijdsbeeld, Ghent/Yale University Press, New Haven-London, 2023
International Yearbook of Futurism Studies Vol. 12 (2022), 2022
The Degenerate Art Exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, has been widely discussed in recent schola... more The Degenerate Art Exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, has been widely discussed in recent scholarship. To some extent, the Nazi assault on modern art, including Futurism, has also been addressed. However, little is known about Futurist responses to Nazism. Moreover, the issue of modernist aspects in German Nazism and Italian Fascism requires further discussion. This essay focuses on how Fascist reactionaries sought to implement measures similar to those adopted by Germany during the late 1930s in Italy and how Italian Futurists sought to defy this development. It also examines the Third Reich's cultural politics and Futurist attitudes towards German anti-Modernism after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. I argue that both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany acknowledged art as a field of political communication.
The article demonstrates the significance of the Great War for Italian Futurism: an aesthetic war... more The article demonstrates the significance of the Great War for Italian Futurism: an aesthetic war, technological but above all revolutionary, from which, for the Italian avant-garde, a new society would have emerged. At this stage the machine the supreme expression of modern industrial society corresponds with the idea of a new man forged by it: heroic, strong, healthy. The complex problem of art and war is here understood as the other side, the most extreme, of the relationship between art and "politics". Futurism’s hendiadys "art-life" and the antithetical "art for art" of Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Savinio are analyzed here as emblems of another way of understanding art and the artist's role in society and as the first instances of the post-war return to order.
... p. 10). 5 Com'è noto, il contrasto tra stato prussiano e Chiesa cattolica, durato dal 18... more ... p. 10). 5 Com'è noto, il contrasto tra stato prussiano e Chiesa cattolica, durato dal 1871 al 1887, fu chiamato da Rudolf Virchow in un pamphlet elettorale «lotta per la cultura». Esso fu gestito da Page 3. rsp 1/98 5 FORME PARTITICO ...
This introduction specifies the main arguments of the book explaining the political meaning of th... more This introduction specifies the main arguments of the book explaining the political meaning of the concept of modernism. The aim is not to propose a new periodization through which to read the political modernity. Our aim is rather to describe the process of a new politicization resulting by the interlacement of art and politics. The traces of modernism are a pattern of the complex and difficult processing of the crisis of conscience in the passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century which is announced by the obsessive presence of concepts like New Man, Machine, Total State, Avant-gard, Plan
After the First World War and the October Revolution, Europe and Russia experienced an intense, i... more After the First World War and the October Revolution, Europe and Russia experienced an intense, intertwined crisis. This paper aims to reconstruct the international dimension of this situation in Italy before Fascism rose to power between 1919 and 1922. In particular, it concentrates on two "Left-futurists", Vinicio Paladini and Ivo Pannaggi, who were influenced by the Soviet Revolution and the ideas of Alexandr Bogdanov and Anatolij Lunačarskij, the future Soviet People's Commissar. It also focuses on the review "Vešč/Gegenstand/Objet", which El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg founded in Berlin in 1922, and its entanglements with French Purism and Pannaggi.
Fabio Benzi, Renske Cohen Tervaert (ed.), Futurism & Europe. The Aesthetics of a New World, exh.cat. Otterlo (Kröller-Müller Museum), published by Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo/Tijdsbeeld, Ghent/Yale University Press, New Haven-London, 2023
International Yearbook of Futurism Studies Vol. 12 (2022), 2022
The Degenerate Art Exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, has been widely discussed in recent schola... more The Degenerate Art Exhibition, held in Munich in 1937, has been widely discussed in recent scholarship. To some extent, the Nazi assault on modern art, including Futurism, has also been addressed. However, little is known about Futurist responses to Nazism. Moreover, the issue of modernist aspects in German Nazism and Italian Fascism requires further discussion. This essay focuses on how Fascist reactionaries sought to implement measures similar to those adopted by Germany during the late 1930s in Italy and how Italian Futurists sought to defy this development. It also examines the Third Reich's cultural politics and Futurist attitudes towards German anti-Modernism after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. I argue that both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany acknowledged art as a field of political communication.
The article demonstrates the significance of the Great War for Italian Futurism: an aesthetic war... more The article demonstrates the significance of the Great War for Italian Futurism: an aesthetic war, technological but above all revolutionary, from which, for the Italian avant-garde, a new society would have emerged. At this stage the machine the supreme expression of modern industrial society corresponds with the idea of a new man forged by it: heroic, strong, healthy. The complex problem of art and war is here understood as the other side, the most extreme, of the relationship between art and "politics". Futurism’s hendiadys "art-life" and the antithetical "art for art" of Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Savinio are analyzed here as emblems of another way of understanding art and the artist's role in society and as the first instances of the post-war return to order.
Traces of Modernism. Art and Politics in the Early Twentieth Century, 2019
Traces of Modernism deals with central elements of the “crisis of consciousness” that marked the ... more Traces of Modernism deals with central elements of the “crisis of consciousness” that marked the transition from the 19th to the 20th century and which became manifest in a dramatic way during the First World War and the revolutions that followed. This change took place against the backdrop of the tension between new internationalism and renewed bursts of nationalism, and is a process that is in many respects incomplete. The book examines the complex relationships and interconnections in the interwar period between new social and political visions (ideology of planning, the “New Man”, the total state) and the artistic-intellectual avant-garde, from Italian Futurism to Bauhaus to their Soviet adherents. At the center of the book is the machine, which serves as a metaphor of modernization and order, yet it also represents a connective link and thus became a key term of the new century.
Dopo la Grande guerra e la Rivoluzione d’Ottobre la macchina (che aveva già caratterizzato dal pu... more Dopo la Grande guerra e la Rivoluzione d’Ottobre la macchina (che aveva già caratterizzato dal punto di vista materiale l’industrialismo ottocentesco) diventa un’idea-simbolo trainante con riscontri culturali oltre che politico-organizzativi in tutto il mondo. Il libro ricostruisce il significato politico della macchina nelle avanguardie artistiche, oltre che le affinità e le divergenze dei loro discorsi, orientati alla rifondazione di una società e di un uomo completamente nuovi. Esso analizza inoltre il dibattito sulla razionalizzazione in Germania, Francia e Italia, la ricezione del taylorismo e del fordismo in questi paesi e nel “discorso” degli artisti. L’autrice, sfuggendo alla tentazione di leggere l’intreccio dei due “campi” di politica e arte nella modalità tradizionale di causa-effetto, presenta invece l’estetica modernistica degli anni Venti e oltre come vera e propria elaborazione di un “ordine nuovo”, spesso sfociante in utopia.
The hypothesis of the book is based on the observation that science and art are, along with
labou... more The hypothesis of the book is based on the observation that science and art are, along with labour, the main tools with which the Duce has joined the Zeitgeist of modernism. By integrating the study of physics International Congress held in Como in 1927 with other cultural events of the fascist brand – the Italian participation in “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” of 1925 and the International Mathematics Congress held in Bologna in 1928 – it emerges in the project as in the practice of Benito Mussolini a common thread that relies on art and science. Two fields considered with great attention by the new regime in order to win first of all credibility and reputation in the international arena, but also two fields on which to operate for domestic political goals, starting with the attempt to tie fascism with differentiated layers of intellectuals operators, who were to help forming the new ruling class the regime needed.
Mythen der Diktaturen. Kunst in Faschismus und NationalsozialismusMiti delle dittature. Arte nel ... more Mythen der Diktaturen. Kunst in Faschismus und NationalsozialismusMiti delle dittature. Arte nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo Themenausstellung im Südtiroler Landesmuseum für Kultur- und Landesgeschichte Schloss Tirol 13. April – 30. Juni 2019Mostra tematica del Museo storico-culturale della Provincia di Bolzano Castel Tirolo13 aprile – 30 giugno 2019
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power between 1919 and 1922. In particular, it concentrates on two "Left-futurists", Vinicio Paladini and Ivo Pannaggi, who were influenced by the Soviet Revolution and the ideas of Alexandr Bogdanov and Anatolij Lunačarskij, the future Soviet People's Commissar. It also focuses on the review "Vešč/Gegenstand/Objet", which El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg founded in Berlin in 1922, and its entanglements with French Purism and Pannaggi.
KEYWORDS: “Left-Futurism”; Constructivism; “Proletkult”; Taylorism; Fascism
power between 1919 and 1922. In particular, it concentrates on two "Left-futurists", Vinicio Paladini and Ivo Pannaggi, who were influenced by the Soviet Revolution and the ideas of Alexandr Bogdanov and Anatolij Lunačarskij, the future Soviet People's Commissar. It also focuses on the review "Vešč/Gegenstand/Objet", which El Lissitzky and Ilya Ehrenburg founded in Berlin in 1922, and its entanglements with French Purism and Pannaggi.
KEYWORDS: “Left-Futurism”; Constructivism; “Proletkult”; Taylorism; Fascism
labour, the main tools with which the Duce has joined the Zeitgeist of modernism. By integrating
the study of physics International Congress held in Como in 1927 with other cultural
events of the fascist brand – the Italian participation in “Exposition Internationale des Arts
Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” of 1925 and the International Mathematics Congress held
in Bologna in 1928 – it emerges in the project as in the practice of Benito Mussolini a common
thread that relies on art and science. Two fields considered with great attention by the new
regime in order to win first of all credibility and reputation in the international arena, but also
two fields on which to operate for domestic political goals, starting with the attempt to tie fascism
with differentiated layers of intellectuals operators, who were to help forming the new
ruling class the regime needed.
Themenausstellung im Südtiroler Landesmuseum für Kultur- und Landesgeschichte Schloss Tirol 13. April – 30. Juni 2019Mostra tematica del Museo storico-culturale della Provincia di Bolzano Castel Tirolo13 aprile – 30 giugno 2019