Aldo
Iori

After studying architecture, restoration, and the history of ancient and contemporary art, he developed an interest in the spatial relationships of artworks. Since the mid-1980s, he has been engaged with the work of international artists, both through scholarly publications and as the curator of solo and group exhibitions, as well as the associated catalogues and monographs, collaborating with numerous museums, foundations, galleries and institutions in Italy and abroad. Editor of ‘AEIUO’, ‘Lettera Internazionale’ and ‘MOZ ART’, and contributor to specialist journals such as ‘Flash Art’ and ‘Arte e Critica’, he has published the volumes Colombo Manuelli (2022), Chiavacci fotografo (2012), Diego Esposito (2009), Eugenio Giliberti (2008), Karpüseeler (2005) and Sauro Cardinali (2001), as well as recent essays in Alberto Burri opera al nero (2012), Louise Nevelson (2013), Hidetoshi Nagasawa (2013), Vittorio Messina (2014 and 2022), Bizhan Bassiri (2016), Corrado Cagli (2019), Obbiettivi su Burri (2019) and Giacomelli / Burri (2021). He currently collaborates with the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri and the Fondazione Bizhan Bassiri. Having lectured in Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia from 1983 to 2020, he currently lectures at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and the University of Perugia.

The course in History of Printing and Publishing aims to provide students of the Academy of Fine Arts with a historical-critical and methodological overview of the history of mechanically reproduced writing and images. In particular, the course will cover the invention of woodblock matrices and movable-type printing using a printing press, through to the current use of computer-based media and digital printing. Central to the course will be the study of the book as a medium for communicating images, text and intellectual content. The history of printing will be addressed by highlighting the process through which what was initially a handcrafted product increasingly became a sophisticated mechanised process, particularly in the era of the Industrial Revolution; its characteristics and qualities will be analysed, extending to contemporary graphic design. The history of printing will also be examined alongside the history of publishing, with a particular focus on the publishing activities of the most committed and militant Italian publishing houses of the twentieth century, including international underground publications (fanzines and clandestine editions). Alongside the book as a mass-produced commodity or as a refined, elitist cultural product, we will examine the production of the book both as an art object/work of art and as a specific product serving the field of art: from catalogues to monographs, from historical-critical texts to artists’ books, not forgetting the printed production of related publicity materials (invitations, playbills and posters). Particular attention will be devoted to a direct analysis of the production of selected art periodicals from the late twentieth century and beyond. Finally, the course will address the issue of the transformation of the book and publishing in the new digital era, as well as possible future scenarios for publishing and new means of graphic communication.

• Various authors, Voce Grafica e Arte del libro, Enciclopedia Universale dell’arte, Vol. XVI, De Agostini, Novara 1981

Ciaponi F., Fenomenologia dell’editoria indipendente, Edizioni del Frisco, Pisa 2020 (in particular, pp. 11–64 and 141–155)
Barbier F., Storia del libro. Dall’antichità al XX secolo, Dedalo, Rome–Bari, 2004 (in part: Chapter V, pp. 123–149, and Chapter IV, pp. 151–170)

• De Matteis, L. and Maffei, G., Libri d’artista, Turin, 1998 (in part: pp. 15–25)

Steinberg, S.H., Cinque secoli di stampa, Einaudi, Turin 1968 et seq. (in part: Part I pp. 20–29 and 93–115, Part II pp. 125–134 and 183–194, Part III pp. 220–261 and 294–308, and Glossary pp. 321–363)
Tranfaglia, N., Editori italiani, ieri e oggi, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 2001

A more in-depth reading list will be provided to individual students according to their educational and curricular interests.