ValerioRivosecchi
Born in Rome in 1957, since 2014 he has held the Chairs of History of Contemporary Art and History of Ancient Art. Previously, he taught at the Academies of Bari (1989–91), Carrara (1992–2003) and Naples (2004–2014).
A student of G. C. Argan and M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, he graduated in 1980 from the Faculty of Humanities at La Sapienza University of Rome. In 1982, he published his dissertation with Bulzoni, which focused on Athanasius Kircher and his relationship with the Roman Baroque. He was awarded a scholarship by the Accademia dei Lincei in 1981. Since 1983, he has been researching Italian art between the two world wars, collaborating with the Archivio della Scuola Romana, where he has curated exhibitions by Alberto Ziveri (1991), Ferruccio Ferrazzi (1992), Antonio Donghi (1997), Francesco Trombadori (1999) and Antonietta Raphaël (2000).
In 1995, he curated the exhibition Arte a Montecitorio, the culmination of a five-year consultancy engagement with the Chamber of Deputies. Together with Antonello Trombadori, he authored the volume Roma appena ieri (1986, Castiglioncello Prize for Art Criticism) and the Catalogue of Works of Art Owned by the Chamber of Deputies. Together with Maurizio Fagiolo, he authored the monographs on Scipione and Antonio Donghi (Allemandi, 1988 and 1990) and the catalogues for the exhibitions Scuola Romana and Realismo Magico (Milan, Palazzo Reale, 1988). His most recent publications include the Catalogue of the Cerasi Collection, now at Palazzo Merulana (Skira 2002, 2007, third edition 2016), the catalogues for a series of exhibitions dedicated to Pericle Fazzini (2003–2005), and the general catalogue of the Carisap Foundation Collection. In 2007, together with M. T. Benedetti, he curated the retrospective of Antonio Donghi in Rome (Vittoriano) and Milan (Palazzo Reale). In 2011, he published the Catalogo ragionato dei dipinti di Renzo Vespignani (Catalogue raisonné of Renzo Vespignani’s paintings). In 2012, he curated the Renzo Vespignani retrospective at the Casino dei Principi in Villa Torlonia.
At the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, she directed the activities of the Galleria del Giardino (2007–2013) together with Marco Di Capua. In 2015, together with F. R. Morelli, she curated the retrospective exhibition on Cipriano Efisio Oppo (Casino dei Principi, Villa Torlonia); in 2016, together with L. Moreschini, she curated the retrospective exhibition on Benvenuto Ferrazzi (Casino dei Principi, Villa Torlonia).
The Origins of Art
The chronological scope of the course extends from Prehistory to the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD), and the lectures will primarily serve as an invitation to reflect on the origins and development of this unique human activity, from an anthropological perspective rather than a purely historical one. Gaining a thorough understanding of ‘why’ humans began to produce works of art, and of the ways in which and the purposes for which artistic activity has been carried out since its inception, also entails understanding and assessing the present through a kind of inverted telescope, in which the ‘ancients’ are actually us, bearing the weight of history and its legacy. As the course is aimed at future professionals in the field of the arts, our guides in our exploration of antiquity will, on a case-by-case basis, be contemporary artists who have drawn inspiration from our ancestors in order to shape the future. Thus, for example, Giorgio de Chirico will help us to understand the ‘linear demon’ of Greek art, Moore and Brancusi will help us to understand the synthesis and energy of Neolithic sculpture, and Gino de Dominicis will help us to understand the mystery of Sumerian iconography…
Since the history of ancient art is taught in schools from the primary level onwards, a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of the subject (e.g., knowledge of architectural styles, the periodisation of Greek sculpture, etc.) will be assumed.
Table of contents
1. Prehistoric art
2. Egyptian art
3. Art of the Ancient Near East
4. Cretan and Mycenaean art, the Mediterranean
5. Archaic Greece
6. Classical Greece
7. Hellenism
8. Pre-Roman Italy and Etruscan art
9. Roman Art from its Origins to Augustus
10. Roman Art from Augustus to Hadrian
11. Roman art after Hadrian
12. Early Christian art
Reading List
An extensive reading list is included in the lecture notes, which will be made available to students at the start of the course.
THREE-YEAR COURSE
Le arti visive dalla Seconda Guerra Mondiale a oggi
The course aims to review the main developments in the visual arts using a foundational approach, which is particularly suitable for students on the three-year degree programme who wish to gain an overview of the history of contemporary art, leaving further in-depth study for the two-year specialist programme. In the first lectures of the course, we will cover the ‘foundations’ of contemporary artistic languages, with a concise overview of the avant-garde movements of the first half of the 20th century (Cubism, Futurism, Abstract Art, Metaphysical Art, Dada, Surrealism, etc.). The central section of the course will focus on developments in the visual arts from the end of the Second World War to the late 1980s. In the final lectures, which will focus on the most recent research, we will attempt a thematic approach, more suited to the still difficult-to-historicise nature of the subject.
Lectures
1. The legacy of the avant-garde. Cubism and Futurism
2. Abstractionism
3. Metaphysical Art
4. Dadaism
5. Surrealism
6. Realisms
7. The USA and Europe after the Second World War: Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel
8. Beyond Art Informel: Research and Experimentation in the 1950s
9. From Art Informel to Neo-Dada
10. Neo-Dada in America
11. From Neo-Dada to Pop Art
12. Pop Art in the USA
13. Italy and Pop Art
14. Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Psychedelia
15. Protest Art in the 1960s and 1970s
16. Land Art and Body Art
17. Arte Povera and Other Italian Artistic Explorations in the 1960s and 1970s/1
18. Arte Povera and Other Italian Experiments in the 1960s and 1970s/2
19. Hyperrealism
20. The 1980s – Italy
21. The 1980s in the USA and Germany
22. Themes 1989–2022: Multimedia and Globalisation
23. Themes 1989–2022: Private and Public
24. Themes 1989–2022: Humour and Irony
Reading list
An extensive reading list is included in the lecture notes, which are available to students from the start of the course.
TWO-YEAR COURSE
The Romantic Period. Art in Europe 1750–1870
This year’s course will follow a tried-and-tested format: the first eight lectures, each lasting approximately three hours, will be devoted to analysing the main topics relating to the period under study. The remaining four lectures will be led by individual students or working groups, and may consist of the presentation of ‘traditional’ research, to be shared in class using the standard PWP format, or using other methods (video, etc.), provided that the research focuses on topics related to the course.
Lecture topics
1. Introductory lecture: Italy during the Grand Tour
2. The Time Machine
3. The Dream of Perfection
4. Neoclassical Rome.
5. Naples, Capital of the Sublime
6. Milan: Romanticism and the Risorgimento
7. Realism in Italy
8. 1871: Rome as Capital
Reading list:
Recommended texts, lecture notes, lecture PowerPoint presentations and other useful materials will be uploaded to the team reserved for students enrolled on the course.