Curzio Malaparte and the Visual Arts
October 19 - 20, 2023
Photo by Petra Liebl-Osborne
General admission: Free
International Conference
Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York; Center for Italian Modern Art; Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò – NYU
October 19-20, 2023
Italian author Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) has been celebrated and ostracized worldwide for his controversial politics and for the impressive success of novels such as Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949). In his writings, Malaparte witnesses the fall of Europe during WWII by illuminating the racialized, gendered and biopolitical aspects of modern political power, even beyond fascism. At the same time, his name is indelibly associated with Casa Malaparte (1938-40, revised until 1950), the outstanding modernist mansion perched atop a solitary rock in Capri, which the author himself designed in collaboration with rationalist architect Adalberto Libera. A fabled subject and setting for countless photographers and filmmakers, Casa Malaparte has become a paradigm of luxurious minimalism and an international icon of Italian style, famously portrayed in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt.
Malaparte’s unique interpretation of arts, architecture, and landscape in his visionary writing and beyond—from Casa Malaparte, to the piercing photographs he shot as a war correspondent in Ethiopia, the Balkans and Ukraine, to his anti-picturesque film The Forbidden Christ (1951)—are at the center of “Curzio Malaparte and the Visual Arts.” The conference will continue the tradition of the CIMA’s Study Days and the collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò.
Concept
FRANCO BALDASSO, Bard College, New York
Advisory Committee
STEFANO ALBERTINI, Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò – NYU
FRANCO BALDASSO, Bard College, New York
MARIA PIA DE PAULIS, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III
FABIO FINOTTI, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New York
NICOLA LUCCHI, Center for Italian Modern Art, New York
PROGRAM
DAY 1 (October 19) ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI CULTURA – New York (686 Park Avenue, NYC)
9:30 AM – Doors open
10:00 AM – Welcome Remarks by IIC Director Fabio Finotti
Introduction to the Conference by Franco Baldasso (Bard College)
10:30 AM – PANEL 1: Right before your Eyes: Malaparte’s Visual Poetics
Chair: Emmanuel Mattiato
Maria Pia De Paulis (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III)
Ut pictura Historia. La rivolta dei santi maledetti o della visività tra storia, testimonianza e poesia
Diego Pellizzari (Université Grenoble Alps)
Il re è nudo. Il ritratto di Himmler in Kaputt di Curzio Malaparte
Cécile Mitéran (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III)
Marmo e sangue: le statue ambigue di Malaparte.
Chiara Zampieri (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Oggetti crudeli: Malaparte e la cultura materiale
1:00 PM – Lunch break
3:00 PM – PANEL 2: Encounters: Malaparte among Arts and Artists
Chair: Maria Pia De Paulis
Emmanuel Mattiato (Université Savoie Mont Blanc)
Malaparte e Prospettive: la rivista come specchio estetico di una stagione fiorente
Colin Marston (UCLA)
The Obscenity of the Unreliable Narrator: Visualization and an Aesthetic of Shock in Malaparte’s War Prose
Francesca Golia (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle/DFK Paris)
La Crocifissione di Lorenzetti. Per una lettura teologico-politica di un’ekphrasis malapartiana
5:00 PM – ROUND TABLE: Translating Malaparte into English
Moderator: Franco Baldasso (Bard College)
Stephen Twilley, translator
Jenny McPhee, translator, NYU
Edwin Frank, editor, NYRB Classics
DAY 2 (October 20): CENTER FOR ITALIAN MODERN ART (421 Broome Street, 4th Fl., NYC)
9:00 AM – Doors open
9:30AM – Welcome Remarks by CIMA Director Nicola Lucchi
9:45 AM – PANEL 1: A House Like Me: Casa Malaparte in Capri
Chair: Davide Spagnoletto (CIMA Fellow)
Michelangelo Sabatino (Illinois Institute of Technology)
Casa Malaparte and the Landscape of Vernacular in Italy
Jean Francois Lejeune (University of Miami, Florida)
Case come me: Malaparte’s and Pasolini’s Islands
Davide Spina (ETH Zurich)
Unfit for Modernity
11:15 AM – Coffee Break
11:30 AM – PANEL 2: Casa Malaparte and the Arts: Design, Photography, and Architecture
Chair: Filippo Bosco (CIMA Fellow)
Petra Liebl-Osborne (University of Miami, Florida)
Artists at Casa Malaparte
Alessandro Melis (New York Institute of Technology)
Determinismo e non-determinismo in architettura: l’esempio di Casa Malaparte
Simone Sfriso (TAM Associati)
Casa Malaparte’s Legacy in Contemporary Architecture
Cherubino Gambardella (Università della Campania)
The Impossible Malapartes: One House, One Thousand Architectures
1:30 PM Lunch break
DAY 2 (October 20): CASA ITALIANA ZERILLI MARIMO’ – NYU (24 W. 12th St., NYC)
5:00 PM – Welcome Remarks by Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò’s Director Stefano Albertini
PANEL 3: The Archivio Malaparte at Biblioteca di Via Senato in Milan: Sources for the Study of Malaparte’s Cinema and Visual Culture
Chair: Franco Baldasso
Carla Maria Giacobbe (Biblioteca di Via Senato, Milan)
Malaparte and Cinema: Drafts and Projects from the Author’s Archive
Federico Oneta (Biblioteca di Via Senato, Milan)
Archivio Malaparte: A “Visual” Panorama
6:00 PM – Introduction to Curzio Malaparte, The Forbidden Christ (Il Cristo proibito, 1951): Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard University)
6:30 PM – Screening of The Forbidden Christ
Organized by:
In collaboration with:
