Book presentation with author Giorgia Gastaldon

 

April 15, 2021

Giorgia Gastaldon, PhD, in conversation with CIMA Fellows discussed her new book, the first comprehensive monograph on Mario Schifano’s early work (1958-1964).

Mario Schifano–resolute painter in years in which Italian art was taking the path of dematerialization–was an artist for whom the categories of character, legend, biography–one that was tormented, exaggerated, cursed–have long prevailed over a thoughtful consideration of the works.

This book, part of a series, the Studi of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, published in collaboration with Silvana Editoriale, examines Schifano’s pictorial evolution focusing on the blazing beginnings of his production–from 1958 to 1964, when he first participated in the Venice Biennial–and studies it starting with the most neglected fundamentals: considering documents from that time period; identifying, dating, and sequencing his works; analyzing his pictorial language in comparison to that of artists from his same period; and, lastly, bringing it back to the culture–visual and broader–of his time. The result is a Mario Schifano less character, and more artist, less fluctuating, and more rigorous in his research, the value of which lies in consistency, in the timeliness and autonomy of his choices, as well as in the instinctive joy of his painting.

Giorgia Gastaldon is currently adjunct professor at L’Università dell’Aquila. Previously she worked as post-doc researcher at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, where she developed a project focused on Italian women artists in the Sixties. In 2014 she obtained a PhD in Art History from the University of Udine with a dissertation on Mario Schifano’s Painting 1958-1964, which has been published in 2021. In 2017 she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at Center for Art Studies Ragghianti, where she developed a research project on Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Florence, which became a book in 2019. Between 2014 and 2016 she spent two-years as research fellow in the framework of the FIRB ministerial project Spreading visual culture: contemporary art through periodicals, archives and illustrations.

Alongside her academic career, she works as curator of exhibitions: she has been appointed as scientific director of Palinsesti (San Vito al Tagliamento, PN) between 2015 and 2019 and as co-curator of the exhibition Carla Accardi. Contesti (Museo del Novecento, Milan) between 2019-2021.

She published several scientific essays, articles and monographs focused, in particular, on the themes of the reception of American art in Italy, on the role played by magazines in the Italian artists’ update, on the Italian art critic frame, and on women artists production in the Sixties.

This event is made free to the public thanks to support from Christie’s.