Circularity and Visibility in Italian Art Periodicals (1968-1978)
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Artl@s Bulletin Volume 10 Issue 1 Images in Circulation Article 8 Circularity and Visibility in Italian Art Periodicals (1968-1978) Denis Viva Università di Trento, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Viva, Denis. "Circularity and Visibility in Italian Art Periodicals (1968-1978)." Artl@s Bulletin 10, no. 1 (2021): Article 8. This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Images in Circulation Circularity and Visibility in Italian Art Periodicals (1968- 1978) Università di Trento Denis Viva Abstract visibility During the 1970s, at the apex of “dematerialized art”,museum the art validation magazines contributed a great deal to turn (the photographicFlash Art circulationData of artworks, news on the artists, etc.) into an economic value. In a country like Italy, where was still lacking, neo- avantgarde periodicals such as or introduced new communicative strategies (community building, indirect advertising, etc.) in order to provide a trans-national audi- ence for Italian art. This study tries to enlighten the impact of advertising on art magazines’ preferences and their criteria of newsworthiness by analyzing some quantitative data. Riassunto visibilità Negli anni settanta, all’apice dell’“arte dematerializzata”,museum le riviste validation d’arte contribuirono a convertire la Flash(la Art circolazione Data fotografica delle opere, le notizie sugli artisti, ecc.) in un valore economico. In un paese come l’Italia, privo di , le riviste di neo- avanguardia come o introdussero nuove strategie comunicative (community building, pubblicità indiretta, ecc.) col fine di creare un pubblico trans- nazionale per l’arte italiana. Questo studio prova a chiarire l’impatto della pubblicità sulle preferenze e sui criteri di notiziabilità delle riviste d’arte, analizzando alcuni dati quantitativi. Denis Viva is assistant professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Trento, Italy. He is the founder of (www.palinsesti.net) and a researcher within the team of www.capti.it, a database of Italian art periodicals supported by the Italian Ministry of University.Palinsesti. Contemporary Italian Art On-line Journal Artl@s Bulletin, Vol. 10, Issue 1 (Spring 2021) Viva – Circularity and Visibility In the 1970s it was commonly acknowledged by the other hand, it provides the work with one of the art critics and artists that “one reproduction1 in an most valuable commodities of our information so- art magazine is worth two one-man shows.” This ciety: the audience’s attention. adage blatantly expressed the importance held by If observed today, the history of art magazines after photographic reproducibility and the distribution 1960 stands out as another episode within the of art periodicals for the circulation of an artwork. wider process which affected first mass media, and In years during which the relationship with mass then social media: that is to say, the need of plan- media was perceived as both utopic and problem- agenda- setting ning content for an audience, according to the prin- atic, such a maxim sounded pragmatic and mock- 5 ciples of , and the emergence of the ing at the same time. To artists and critics who 6 aura exhibition value exposability) Attention Economy , aimed at inducing a greater had long debated Walter Benjamin’s definition of 2 cognitive focus in its consumers. and ( , the pho- tographic circulation of an artwork revealed its These communicative mechanisms emerged slowly pseudo-democratic effects instead: in contempo- within art magazines and became stronger – para- rary art, where even multiple copies (often coming doxically – after 19687 with the so- called “dema- in limited edition) were only affordable for a few terialization of art”. At a time when art became owners, the public visibility of an artwork was more and more immaterial and multipliable, pho- certainly a way to widen its audience, but it also tographic circulation among magazines was a good ended up increasing its value. What Benjamin con- way to reactivate some sort of fetishization of the aura sidered to be a democratic feature of technology – work of art and to compensate somewhat for its cult value interest namely the end of the work of art’s and of its material inconsistency: its circulation guaranteed a through seriality – was actually produc- capital of , also developed through various ing a new form of exclusive value. As philosopher ostensive mediations (from the exhibitions to arti- exhibition value Byung- Chul Han observed in a recent reinterpreta- cles in magazines). tion of Benjamin, the has thus been museum visibility In Italy, for example, during the 1970s magazines converted into an actual economic factor – which validation Visibility replaced institutions: lacking a form of I would rather define as : “value accrues 8 aura 3 expos- comparable to that offered by Germany only insofar as objects are seen.” – which ability interests (contemporary museums first opened in Italy only is the restoration of also by means of 9 4 in the 1980s) , magazines were one of the few tools – produces a capital of , conceived of internationalization for Italian art. They contrib- in the double meaning of the term: on the one hand, visibility uted a great deal to the reputation of artists, regulat- it attributes an economic value to the work of art ing their . Starting with periodicals such as according to the degree of its circulation, and on Agenda- setting The Art Press. Two Centuries of Art Ma- 5 Setting the Agenda. gazines1 The Mass Media andis the Public capacity Opinion of the mass- media to give salience to a news and to John A. Walker, “Periodicals since 1945,” in Artforum turn into a public topic. On this notion see Maxwell E. McCombs, , ed. Trevor Fawcett, Clive Phillpot (London: The Art Book Company, 1976), 6 (Cambridge [MA]: Polity Press, 2004). 51;2 Clive Phillpot, “Arts Magazines and Magazine Art,”Exposability , February 1980, 53. Attention Economy is focused on humanThe Economics attention of as Attention. a marketing Style problem and Substance to solve. in According to Benjamin, in the age of mechanical reproduction the uniqueness of thePerhaps Age of it Informationis not by chance that a theorist of Attention Economy dealt with Marcel Du- the artworks will be replaced by their circulation. “is the dialectical Thepair- champ’s oeuvre: Richard H. Lahnam, ater,of aura, Garden, with Bestiary:the declared A Materialist historical History decay of art’sExhibitions aura directly related to increased 7 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 42-54. exposability” [Lucy Steed, “Exposability: On the Taking- Place in Future of Art,” in This definition came from a well-known book, where Post-minimalist artSix afterYears: 1966 the , ed. Tristan Garcia and Vin- Dematerializationis described as a “process of the Art of Object dematerialization, from 1966 to or1972 a deemphasis on material aspects Selectedcent Normand Writings: (Berlin, 1938- Lausanne: 1940 ECAL, Sternberg Press, 2019), 75]. On this notion, (uniqueness, permanence, decorative attractiveness)”: Lucy Lippard, see Walter Benjamin, “Work of Art in the Age of Reproducibility (Third Version),” in (New York: Praeger Publishers, , ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge 1973),8 5. [MA], London: The Belknap Press of Harvard UniversityNuova Press, Corrente2003), 257- 15458. On this On the relevance of GermanCirculations art system, in the see Global Catherine History Dossin of Art and Béatrice Joyeux- notion in relation to the World’s Fairs, see Andrea Pinotti, “Esposizione, esponibilità, Prunel, “The German Century? How a Geopolitical Approach Could Transform the Hi- disponibilità: Walter Benjamin e la dialettica dell’Expo,” , 2 (2014): story of Modernism,” in , ed. Thomas DaCosta 49- 72. For repurposingThe thisTransparency concept today Society in Art Theory: Steed, “Exposability: On the Kaufmann, Catherine Dossin and Béatrice Joyeux- Prunel (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), Taking-3 Place in Future of Art,” 75- 84. 183-9 201. Byung- Chul Han, visibility (Stanford: Stanford University Press, The Museum of Contemporary Art at the Castello di Rivoli has opened inInternational 1984, while 2015),4 9. aura exposability Journalthe Centro of Arts per Management l’Arte Contemporanea “Luigi Pecci”, in Prato, in 1988. Alessia Zorloni, To a certain extent, is the reconciliation between what Benjamin conceived “Structure of Contemporary Art Market and the Profile of Italian Artists,” as opposite: and . , 1 (2005): 61-71. 99 Artl@s Bulletin, Vol. 10, Issue 1 (Spring 2021) Images in Circulation Viva – Circularity and Visibility Metro10 , which promoted New Dada and Pop Art in first kind was the self- promoted and experimen- Italy and Europe, and which was founded by Bruno tal review, which aims at realizing an artistic and 11 La città di Riga Alfieri , who was in contact with the12 powerful high intellectual product (a good example of this Italian- American gallerist, Leo Castelli , a decisive sort was , published between 1976 metamorphosis took place: art magazines ceased and 1977, with the contributions of several neo- being arenas for the debate among critics, and avantgardist critics and artists); the second kind started instead to ground their mediation upon the was the “advisor” review, which mainly tried to selectivity implicit in their topics, with the result of guide the taste of its readers and bourgeois collec- D’ars agency Bolaffi Arte generating indicators of the prestige of given artists, tors, while expanding its audience among the art such as the significance of the spaces dedicated to public ( , since 1960, and , them.