While unquestionably autocratic, Mussolini did not oppose the proliferation of unofficial artistic styles.
Giacomo Balla
Broken Utopia: Abstract Painting in Italy
Nobody believes in the simple narrative arc of Modern Art anymore; even so, Painting in Italy 1910s–1950s: Futurism, Abstraction, Concrete Art at Sperone Westwater is an instructive glimpse into the fullness and complexity lying beneath thumbnail histories of the avant-garde.
Italian Futurism, or the Lessons of Art and Politics
The exhibition Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe, presently on view at the Guggenheim, is the first important museum survey of work from this seminal utopian Modernist movement seen in New York since Futurism at the Museum of Modern Art in 1961.
Mail Art Bulletin: No History, Only a Present
As we dig through our Mail Art Bulletin submissions, our participants have taken to constructing a history of Mail Art through correspondence. We received three envelopes with references to Ray Johnson, the godfather of mail art.
Art Basel Miami in Pictures
There’s no point in giving you a “review” of the mothership of art fairs in Miami, Art Basel Miami Beach, so I thought a photo essay with some observations were more appropriate.
I admit that I got a little bored after three hours of wandering around. I found myself seeing the same thing and getting the same numbness I get during marathon holiday shopping trips or walks through ancient souks … there’s only so much merchandise you can see in one stop.
It was still refreshing to see some galleries display the prices of their wares freely, and examples of excellent abstraction by names mostly absent from the art history survey books, but I was most shocked to discover what must be the most awful Basquiat I have even seen in my life.