Francesca Romana
Morelli
Francesca Romana Morelli is a professor of Contemporary Art History and History of Photography. She previously taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. A student of Maurizio Fagiolo, her research focuses in particular on Italian art of the first half of the 20th century and the 1950s. She is the author of catalogues, books, essays and entry notes, and has curated and collaborated on exhibitions at museums and foundations, including the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, The Jewish Museum (New York), the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice), and for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is a member of the scientific committee and the Board of Directors of the Giuseppe Capogrossi Archive Foundation, and, together with Guglielmo Capogrossi Guarna, she published the catalogue raisonné of the artist’s figurative work (2012). She also conceived and curated the project Capogrossi e il segno nei musei e nelle Istituzioni italiane (Capogrossi and Signs in Italian Museums and Institutions) (2022) to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his death, which was based on an exhibition that directly compared his figurative work with his ‘sign’ work. She is currently preparing a volume on Capogrossi’s jewellery. She has served on the scientific committees of the Archivio della Scuola and the Archivio Oppo. She published the volume Oppo. A legislator for art. Scritti di critica e di politica delle arti 1915–1943 (De Luca, 2000), and curated the first retrospective on his painting, held at Villa Struhlfern in 2010, accompanied by the first systematic survey of the artist’s oeuvre, as well as an anthological exhibition at Villa Torlonia in 2015, together with Valerio Rivosecchi. He curated an in-depth exhibition on the Origine Group (Capogrossi, Burri, Colla, Ballocco) in relation to the abstractions of the 1950s (L.U.CC.A. Center, Lucca, 2009). Since 1991, he has been a contributor to ‘Il Giornale dell’Arte’ based in Rome, and he has also collaborated with ‘The Art Newspaper’ and for the ArtEconomy 24 supplement of ‘Il Sole 24 Ore’.
THREE-YEAR and TWO-YEAR COURSES
History of Art in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century / 2nd Term
Programme
The course examines the artists and events that shaped the visual arts from the late 1940s through to the transition, in the final two decades of the twentieth century, to the explorations of the new century. Topics to be addressed include the role of the artist, theories, changes in expressive languages in an attempt to integrate ‘art and life’, the use of materials, starting with those drawn from reality and the use of the artist’s own body, the reduction of the work to its most basic elements, changes in the art system, and the emergence of new cultures that rapidly shifted the centre of gravity of art from Europe to the United States. Finally, historical and social events will provide a dialectical framework within which developments in art can be situated.
Visits to museums and exhibitions will be organised during the course.
Learning objectives
The aim of the course is to acquire a solid basic knowledge of the subject, with the objective of developing the tools necessary for a critical approach to the history of contemporary art.
2nd Semester
Lecture schedule: Room 305, Tuesdays 15:30–19:00
(Email: f.morelli@abaroma.it; frmorelli@hotmail.com).
Office hours: Friday 2:00–6:30 p.m. in the staff room; on other days, by appointment with the lecturer.
Examination programme
It is compulsory to study one of the texts listed in the reading list provided by the lecturer, as well as a textbook covering the period under study. Students may choose texts other than those recommended, provided that they agree this in advance with the lecturer.
Knowledge of history from the Second World War to the present is also required; for this purpose, the volume R. Villari, Storia contemporanea, Editori Laterza, is recommended.
Recommended general texts
– G. Dorfles and A. Vettese, Arti Visive. Il Novecento. Protagonisti e movimenti, Edizioni Atlas, Bergamo 2003
– E. H. Gombrich, La storia dell’arte raccontata da E.H. Gombrich, Einaudi, Turin 1966 (including later editions)
– H. Foster, R. Krauss, Y.-A. Bois, B. H. D. Buchloh, D. Joselit, Arte dal 1900. Modernismo, antimodernismo, postmodernismo, seconda edizione italiana a cura di E. Grazioli, Zanichelli, Bologna 2013
– A. Lombardi, Arte contemporanea. Oriente-Occidente. Dal 1945 a oggi, Amazon 2019
– M. Corgnati, F. Poli, Dizionario dell’arte del Novecento. Movimenti, artisti, opere, tecniche e luoghi, Bruno Mondadori, Milan 2001
– G. Bora, G. Fiaccadori, A. Negri, A. Nova, I luoghi dell’arte. Storia, opere, percorsi, Electa-Bruno Mondadori, Milan 2003, Vol. 6 (Nascita e sviluppi dell’arte del XX secolo)
– E. Crispolti, Come studiare l’arte contemporanea, Donzelli editore, Rome 1997
Bibliography from which to choose a volume to study (in addition to the textbook)
– V. Turner, Antropologia della performance, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1966
– G. Celant, Arte Povera, Milan 1969
– Contemporanea, exhibition catalogue edited by A.B. Oliva, F. Sargentini and other authors, Centro Di Edizioni, Rome 1973
– L. Vergine, Il corpo come linguaggio, la Body-Art e storie simili, Giampaolo Prearo, Bologna, 1974 (updated edition, Skira 2000)
– G. Celant, Ambiente-Arte: dal Futurismo alla Body Art, Edizioni Biennale di Venezia, 1977
– C. Tomkins, Vite d’avanguardia, Costa & Nolan, Genoa, 1983
– J. Clair, Critica della modernità, Allemandi, Turin 1984
– G. Celant, Artmakers. Arte, architettura, fotografia, danza e musica negli Stati Uniti, Feltrinelli, Milan 1984
– G. Celant, Arte Povera, Umberto Allemandi & c.,, Turin 1989
– U. Eco, Opera aperta, Bompiani, Milan 1988 (first edition, 1962)
– A. Bonito Oliva (ed.), Ubi Fluxus ibi Motus, Mazzotta, Milan 1990
– G. Celant, A. Costantini, Roma- New York 1948–1964, Charta, Milan, 1993
– A. D’Elia (ed.), Pino Pascali, Editore Laterza, Bari 1983 (subsequent and expanded editions)
– F. Poli, Minimalismo, Arte Povera, Arte Concettuale, Editori Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1995
–Gli anni ’60. Le immagini al potere, exhibition catalogue edited by A. Detheridge, Edizioni Mazzotta, Milan 1996
– J. Clair, La responsabilità dell’artista. Le avanguardie tra terrore e ragione, Allemandi, Turin 1997
– A. Lugli, Wunderkammer. La stanza delle meraviglie, Umberto Allemandi, Turin 1997
– C. Salaris, Il movimento del settantasette. Linguaggi e scritture dell’ala creativa”, Edizioni AAA, Bertiolo, 1997
– R. Goldberg, Performance. Live Art since the 60s, Thames and Hudson, London 1998
–Yves Klein. La Vita, la vita stessa che è l’arte assoluta, exhibition catalogue edited by B. Corà and Gilbert Perlein, Edizioni Museo Pecci Prato, Prato 2000
– A. Sauzeau Boetti, Alighiero e Boetti ‘Shaman/Showman’, Edizioni Allemandi, Turin 2001
– The Fluxus Constellation, exhibition catalogue edited by S. Solimano, Edizioni Neos, Genoa, 2002
– S. Bordini, Arte Elettronica. Video, Installazioni, Web Art, Computer Art, Giunti Editore, Florence–Milan 2004
– Zero. 1958–1968 tra Germania e Italia, exhibition and catalogue curated by M. Meneguzzo and S. von Wiese, Silvana Editoriale, Milan 2004
– Piero Manzoni, exhibition catalogue edited by Germano Celant, Naples, 2007
– A. Vettese, Si fa con tutto. Il linguaggio dell’arte contemporanea, Laterza, Bari 2010
– J. Fontcuberta, La furia delle immagini. Note sulla postfotografia, Einaudi, Turin 2018.
– T. Macrì, Slittamenti della performance. Vol. 1. Anni 1960–2000, Postmedia Books, 2020
– L. P. Nicoletti, Dizionario Lucio Fontana, Quodlibet, Macerata 2023
– T. Macrì, Stato di incanto. Danza, non-danza, post-danza e performance art, Postmedia books, 2025
THREE-YEAR and TWO-YEAR COURSES
The first hundred years of photography and the adventurous quest for its establishment as an art form. From Pictorialism to the explorations of the avant-garde in the early decades of the 20th century.
When undertaking a course on the history of photography, it is necessary, first of all, to ask ourselves ‘What is a photograph?’ and ‘What truly distinguishes it from other artistic techniques?’ We are generally accustomed to considering photography for its iconic value and its direct link to reality through ‘likeness’, and we typically assess it according to the same aesthetic criteria as a painting (originality of the subject, composition, richness of detail, capacity for abstraction, brightness, contrast, etc.).
This is the question that underpins the entire course, which begins with a turning point in the history of photography, when, in 1886, at the Camera Club in London, Peter Henry Emerson proclaimed that photography was pictorial art: this marked the birth of Pictorialism. A subsequent pivotal date is 1888, the year in which Kodak launched its first camera, which was easy to use even for beginners, thereby revolutionising the use and spread of the medium.
It was Stieglitz who played a decisive role in this period in New York: he founded the photographic society Photo Secession (1902) and the influential magazine ‘Camera Work’, and in 1907 he opened a gallery called 291, which he described as an ‘experimental station’. Here, he exhibited photography, but above all paintings and sculptures by Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi, Picabia and others – some of the most avant-garde art America had ever seen up to that point. In 1890, Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives (1890) was published, an early manifesto of social documentary photography focusing on the New York slums where poor immigrant communities lived, which was to play a leading role in social research in the decades that followed. With the arrival of the 20th century, photography became widespread in newspapers: the world was about to become an increasingly smaller place.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Avant-Garde movements – from Futurism to Dadaism, from Surrealism to the Bauhaus – viewed photography as a means of liberation from the representation of reality. Artists pursuing abstract experimentation developed technical processes, including giants such as Man Ray with rayography. Finally, there was the groundbreaking exhibition Film und Foto, which opened in Stuttgart in 1929 and then toured as far as Japan. The aim of this exhibition was to present cinema and photography as the new media capable of depicting the world through a ‘new vision’. Divided into national pavilions, where the leading international photographers of the time were represented, it addressed highly topical issues, including political and social ones. From this point onwards, photography assumed a central position within the expressive arts, as an autonomous means of expression, an aesthetic tool that was an end in itself; furthermore, it also became vital in other areas of social and scientific life.
2nd Semester
Lecture times: Room 207, Friday 11:00–14:00
Office hours: Friday 2:00–6:30 pm, Lecturers’ common room, by appointment with the lecturer.
(Email: f.morelli@abaroma.it; frmorelli@hotmail.com).
Examination syllabus
Students are required to study the text by W. Guadagnini (2010) up to the Second World War and at least two of the texts of their choice from the list below. PowerPoint presentations from the lectures will be provided.
In addition, it is compulsory to study the historical events between the mid-nineteenth century and the Second World War, which provide the background to the period covered by the course (recommended: R. Villari, Storia contemporanea, Editori Laterza):
– W. Guadagnini (ed.), Una storia della fotografia dei XX e del XXI secolo, Zanichelli 2010.
– R. Krauss, Teoria e Storia della Fotografia, Mondadori, Milan 1990
– R. Barthes, La camera chiara, Einaudi, Turin 2003
– Walter Benjamin, L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Einaudi, 2014
– Joan Fontcuberta, La furia delle immagini. Note sulla postfotografia, Einaudi, Turin 2018