This book was published by Magazzino Italian Art on the occasion of the solo exhibition Renato Leotta curated by Vittorio Calabrese at New York University Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, New York City, April 30 - June 12, 2019. The book featured essays by Ara H. Merjian, Antonella Camarda, Franco Baldasso and Vittorio Calabrese and contributions by Stefano Albertini, Nancy Olnick, and Giorgio Spanu.
Library of Congress Control Number
2019939294
© 2019 Magazzino Italian Art Foundation
About the Artist
Renato Leotta (b. 1982, Turin) lives and works between Acireale and Turin and was the most recent Italian Fellow at the Americ an Academy in Rome in 2019. In addition to his recent exhibition Eine Sandsammlung at the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (2018) and sit e-specific commission at Manifesta in Palazzo Butera in Palermo Sicily (2018), Leotta has had solo exhibitions at Madragoa, Lisbon (2017); Galleria Fonti, Naples (2015); CRIPTA747, Turin (2014). Select group exhibitions include Gopius Bau, B erlin (upcoming 2019); The Piedmont Pavilion, Venice (upcoming 2019); MAC, Sao Paulo; Museo Madre, Naples; Le Magasin, Grenoble; NAK, Aachen; Palazzo Fortuny, Venice (2017); Quadriennale di Roma, Rome (2016); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (2015). Leotta is a co- founder of CRIPTA747 in Turin.
About the Contributors
Antonella Camarda is the Director of Museo Nivola in Orani and a researcher and lecturer in Art History at the University of Sassari, Italy. She holds a Ph.D . in Art and Anthropology at the University of Sassari and a post-graduate degree in Psychology and Museum Studies at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. The focus on her research is on post-war Modernism, the cultural relationships between Italy and the U.S., and the role of museums in the reception of contemporary art.
Ara H. Merjian is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, as well Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is the author of Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Modernism, Paris (Yale, 2014) and of the forthcoming Against the Avant-Garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Contemporary Art and Neocapitalism, 1960-1975 (University of Chicago Press, 2019). His criticism has appeared in Artforum, Art in America, frieze, Apollo, and other publications.
Franco Baldasso is Assistant Professor and Director of the Italian Program at Bard College, NY. He is the recipient of the 2019 Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies from the American Academy in Rome. His main research interests are 20th century literature, art and intellectual history, the complex relations between Fascism and Modernism, and the idea of the Mediterranean in modern aesthetics. He authored a book on Holoc aust survivor Primo Levi, Il cerchio di gesso. Primo Levi narratore e testimone (Bologna 2007) and is currently revising a new manuscript titled: Against Redemption: Literary Dissent during the Transition from Fascism to Democracy in Italy.
Vittorio Calabrese is the Director of Magazzino Italian Art Foundation. A native of Irpinia, Italy, he specializes in the management of international and cultural institutions, art business practices, collection management, and appraising. Vittorio holds a BA and MSc in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University, Milan, and an MA in History of Art and the Art Market from Christie’s Education, New York.
He has curated several exhibitions including: Ornaghi & Prestinari, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, New York, 2016; Marco Bagnoli, Domenico Bianchi, Remo Salvadori: From the Olnick Spanu Collection, Hillyer Art Space, Washington D.C., 2017; Marco Anelli: Building Magazzino, Italian Cultural Institute, New York, 2017; Bagnoli, Bianchi, Salvadori, The Garrison Art Center, New York, 2018; Alessandro Piangiamore: Marango, Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, New York, 2018; Marco Anelli: Building Magazzino, Alice Curtis Desmond & Hamilt on Fish Library, New York, 2018; and was the juror for Radius 50, Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, New York, 2018.
About Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU
Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, home of the Department of Italian Studies at New York University, was established thanks to a generous donation from the Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò as a permanent and constructive homage to her husband, Guido Zerilli-Marimò. Casa Italiana was inaugurated in November 1990 with the mission to promote the deepening of knowledge of Italian civilization in the United States. Casa Italiana develops a rich and qualified program of extra-curricular cultural events ranging from Italian literature to political theory to figurative arts to the history of science.
Begun by the first Director Professor Luigi Ballerini, the Casa began to collaborate with both public and private Italian centers and institutes that have the common objective of extending Americans’ understanding of Italian culture.
In 1998, the direction of the Casa was passed to Professor Stefano Albertini whose leadership has allowed the Casa to become a privileged center for cultural discussion, making New York University one of the most important centers of European and international studies in the world.