Where and when
Final lesson of the modern and contemporary Italian literature course
Professor Teresa Spignoli
In collaboration with the University of Florence – Department of Languages, Literatures and Intercultural Studies
The sixties of the twentieth century are characterized by a fervent literary and artistic experimentation that questions the relationships between the different arts, in the search for radically new forms of expression.
The topic of the lesson – which arises at the end of the course of modern and contemporary Italian literature – focuses on some key experiences of that period, with particular reference to the various forms of hybridization between the verbal and visual register that develop in Italy and in the abroad: from Balestrini’s verbal collages, to the visual poetry of Gruppo 70 (L. Pignotti, E. Miccini, L. Ori, L. Marcucci, K. La Rocca), up to the interdisciplinary contaminations of Fluxus (G. Chiari). Intermediate languages are born in a dialectical relationship with the expansion of modern mass society, whose assumptions they radically contest, connoting themselves, as a whole, as a “culture of dissent”, in relation to the relationship between artistic production and the political establishment, social and cultural.
This is evident in the critical and theoretical reflection that develops within Group 63 and Group 70, through the creation of magazines and the promotion of debates and meetings, such as the conference dedicated to “Art and Communication”, organized by Pignotti and Miccini in 1963 at the Forte Belvedere in Florence. In this sense, this lesson is part of the research carried out in the context of the University Project On the Two Shores of the Iron Curtain: the cultures of dissent and the definition of European identity in the second half of the twentieth century between Italy, France and the USSR ( 1956-1991), which aims to analyze the various forms of underground culture that from the 1950s onwards have affected the European context.
Teresa Spignoli
Researcher at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Intercultural Studies of the University of Florence, Teresa Spignoli is Coordinator of the Verba Picta research project. Interrelation between text and image in the artistic and literary heritage of the second half of the twentieth century, and scientific director, together with Dr. Claudia Pieralli, of the University Project Alle due shores of the iron curtain: the cultures of dissent and the definition of European identity in the second half of the twentieth century between Italy, France and the USSR (1956-1991), both based at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Intercultural Studies. She dealt with epistolary writings, publishing the correspondence between Piero Bigongiari and Giuseppe Ungaretti (” The certainty of poetry. ”Lettere 1942-1970, Polistampa 2008), the correspondence between Carlo Betocchi and Antonio Pizzuto (Lettere 1966-1971, Polistampa 2006), and – with F. Fastelli – the bibliographic repertory reasoned (1999-2009). Correspondences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (“Moderna” 2011). He has dedicated a monograph to literary cafes in Florence (Polistampa 2009; II ed. 2011) and has published a series of essays on the relationship between literature and the figurative arts (Giovanni Testori’s narrative work between Baroque and Informal, in The forms of the novel and Western Literatures between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Century, ETS 2010; No Man’s Land: From Free-word Tables to Verbal-visual Poetry, in The History of Futurism. The Precursors, Protagonists, and Legacies, Lexington Books 2012). In this context, the monograph Giuseppe Ungaretti is worthy of note. Poetry, music, painting (ETS 2014) and curatorship with the introduction of the volume La poesia in immagine / L’’immagine in poesia. Group 70, Florence 1963-2013 (Campanotto 2014).