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Roberta Minnucci

Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Abteilung III - Direktion Prof. Dr. Tanja Michalsky, Post-Doc

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Current Postdoctoral Fellow at Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History (Rome).
Previously:
2022-23 Scholar-in-Residence, Magazzino Italian Art Foundation (Cold Spring, New York)
Getty Library Research Grant Holder, Getty Research Centre/Getty Foundation (Los Angeles)
Postdoctoral Rome Awardee, British School at Rome (Rome)
Winner of the first edition of the Scholarship/Publication Prize "Researching and Rewriting Contemporary Art History" promoted by Fondazione Baruchello (Rome), Università La Sapienza (Rome), Università Cattolica (Milan), Centro di Ricerca per l'Arte Astratta in Italia (Milan).
Curatorial Experience: Tate Modern (London), Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art (London), Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art (Rivoli, Turin), Southampton City Art Gallery (Southampton).

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Chiara Vecchiarelli

École Normale Supérieure

Pia Gottschaller

The Courtauld Institute of Art

New York University

University of California, Los Angeles

Università Bocconi

Sarah Patterson

Università Degli Studi Dell'Aquila

Valérie Da Costa

University Paris 8

Alise Tifentale

Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Jacopo Galimberti

IUAV University Venice

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Book Chapters by Roberta Minnucci

Minnucci, Roberta. "Impoverishing signs to reduce them to their archetypes: an Introduction to Arte Povera" in 'Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses', edited by Roberta Minnucci, Stephen Nelson, Paul Bonaventura, (London: Estorick Foundation), 2017.

in Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses, edited by Roberta Minnucci, Stephen Nelson, Paul Bonaventura, London: Estorick Foundation, 2017

Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition "Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences... more

Articles by Roberta Minnucci

Minnucci, Roberta. Jannis Kounellis An Epic Journey With No Return

Art Journal , 2023

Review of the Exhibition "Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts" curated by Vincenzo de Bellis and Kit Ham... more

Minnucci, Roberta. “Rome Awards: Rome and the Foreign Gaze: The Reinterpretation of Classical Antiquity in Contemporary Art in the 1960s and 1970s.” Papers of the British School at Rome 90 (2022): 365–366.

Papers of the British School at Rome , Oct 1, 2022

Minnucci, Roberta. "Heaps of Rags and Double Visions: The Interpretation of the Classical Venus in Arte Povera" in 'IKON Journal of Iconographic Studies', vol. 13 "The Afterlife of Antiquity' (2020)

IKON Journal of Iconographic Studies, 2020

This article examines the reception of the classical Venus in Arte Povera through two case studie... more This article examines the reception of the classical Venus in Arte Povera through two case studies: Venus of the Rags (1967- 1974) by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mimesis (1975-1976) by Giulio Paolini. By adopting a cultural biographical approach, the reception of the original archetype, i.e. the Greek lost original Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, is investigated through its replicas and imitations, specifically the Roman copy, known as the Medici Venus, for the work of Paolini, and Venus with the Apple by the Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvalsden for Pistoletto. The use of ready-made replicas prompts a discussion on the reproducibility of sculpture and the dichotomy between the original and the copy, while an analysis of the materiality of the sculptures makes it possible to shed light on the role of the plaster casts in the history of art and the references evoked by the use of different materials, including those with kitsch associations. The choice of Venus as a subject is analysed as connected to a meditation on the concept of beauty, both intended as an aesthetic ideal within the domain of art and in its large variety of feminine versions. Lastly, the reception of classical sculpture will be analysed from a perspective of continuity with the past and with Mediterranean artistic heritage, as an attempt at reclaiming an endangered cultural memory at a time of rapid changes and international influences.

Conferences, Lectures, Talks by Roberta Minnucci

"Out of Focus: Anna Piva's Creative Contribution to the work of Giulio Paolini" - Workshop 'Couple and Artistic Collaboration in Modern Italy', American Academy in Rome

Casting the Past: Arte Povera and Classical Sculpture – 2023 Magazzino Lecture Series

2023 Magazzino Lecture Series "Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue" Curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci

Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture seri... more Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture series which brings together some of the leading scholars of Arte Povera to present new perspectives on postwar Italian art. The 2023 Lecture Series, Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci, Magazzino's 2022-23 Scholar-in-Residence, will address research topics which are strictly interconnected with Arte Povera's relationship with the past and its artistic exchanges with the United States.

Between Cultural Diplomacy and Counterculture: Eugenio Battisti, Alan Solomon, and the Exhibition Young Italians in 1968

by Raffaele Bedarida and Roberta Minnucci

Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, 2023

Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture seri... more Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture series which brings together some of the leading scholars of Arte Povera to present new perspectives on postwar Italian art. The 2023 Lecture Series, Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci, Magazzino's 2022-23 Scholar-in-Residence, will address research topics which are strictly interconnected with Arte Povera's relationship with the past and its artistic exchanges with the United States.

Lecture “Arte Povera and Turin: An Artistic Geography”. Invited Speaker for the Master's Program of the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York, 2022.

“A Contemporary Take on Trompe l’Oeil: Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mirror Paintings”, Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, 2021

Trompe l'oeil, meaning 'deceiving the eye', describes works of art and objects with illusionistic... more Trompe l'oeil, meaning 'deceiving the eye', describes works of art and objects with illusionistically beguiling surfaces and forms. The production of such works can now be identified as a global historical phenomenon, with a broad array of examples ranging from the familiar Palissy wares, to Edward Collier's writing implements painting, to Chinese jade cabbages that have been challenging the material experience of visuality and countervisuality for hundreds of years. However, despite its long history of production, the ontology of trompe l'oeil artistic production and the reasons behind this illusory invention remain unexplored. Engaging with the concept of trompe l'oeil in expanded art-historical and visual fields of enquiry, across time and space, would allow us to probe the evolution of the pursuit of deceptive visual representation and the consumption of deceitful things in relation to both heuristic and contextual frames such as politics, religion, society and the economics of production. Accordingly, 'why trompe l'oeil?' will be the fundamental question addressed in this session. Papers might explore how different types of global trompe l'oeil art production have shaped the ways in which such art is produced, dispersed, consumed and conceptualised. Moreover, other artificial approaches to representing reality that developed alongside the concept of trompe l'oeil, such as Skeuomorphism, Cubism, Indeterminism, Naturalism, might also be considered. The primary aim of the session is to expose the rationale and motivation for trompe l'oeil art production by considering its different forms from a trans-historical and transspatial perspective and we invite papers that explore this through a range of different perspectives and methodological approaches.

"Between Artifice and Nature: Exploring Materiality in 1960s Italian Art", Invited Speaker, Fine Arts Talks, British School at Rome, 2022

Lecture "Conversazioni in gipsoteca: l’opera d’arte tra copia e frammento". Study Day on the oeuvre of Giulio Paolini 'L' artista ringrazia. Genealogie: le fonti artistiche e letterarie di Giulio Paolini', Teatro Niccolini and Museo Novecento, Florence, June 2022.

'L' artista ringrazia. Genealogie: le fonti artistiche e letterarie di Giulio Paolini' Giornata d... more

"Performing the Score: Writing, Music and Dance in Kounellis' performance 'Da inventare sul posto' ('To Invent on the Spot')". Conference "Writing / Performance", Royal College of Art, London, 2020

Conference "Writing / Performance", Royal College of Art, London, 2020

"Conflicting Bodies in Jannis Kounellis’ Performances", The Society for Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference, University of St Andrews, 2018

The Society for Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference - University of St Andrews, Nov 16, 2018

This paper will examine the role of the body in Jannis Kounellis' performative works. Having arri... more This paper will examine the role of the body in Jannis Kounellis' performative works. Having arrived in Italy from Greece at a young age to study in Rome, the artist soon became associated with the Italian avant-garde group Arte Povera. In the early 1970s, Kounellis produced several performative works in which he impersonated the god Apollo by wearing a mask made of white plaster. In the performance Untitled, staged for the first time in March 1973 at La Salita Gallery in Rome, Kounellis presented himself motionless, seated behind a table on which fragmented body parts in plaster were displayed. His face was covered by a mask of Apollo, while a flautist was playing an excerpt from Mozart. Central to the interpretation of the work is the notion of conflicting bodies. The opposition between the artist's body and the plaster cast reproductions, that is between living and inanimate bodies, but also whole and fragmented, real and artificial, illustrate the central role of the body in the artist's practice. Do the sectioned body parts on the table illustrate the lost wholeness of a remote past or the alienation of the present condition? Why does the artist mask his identity by wearing the features of an idealised, unreal, and yet fragmented face? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining the way in which the body is employed and depicted in the work, thus unveiling its complex layers of meaning.

“Reinterpreting Antiquity through the Photography of Sculpture: Giulio Paolini’s Sappho series (1968–1981)”, 'Echoes. A Symposium on Classic-Modern Relations', University of Birmingham, 2018.

Books by Roberta Minnucci

Ritagliare l'astrazione. I collage di Carla Badiali

Ritagliare l'astrazione. I Collage di Carla Badiali., 2022

La Fondazione Baruchello è lieta di presentare il libro di Roberta Minnucci, Ritagliare l'astrazi... more La Fondazione Baruchello è lieta di presentare il libro di Roberta Minnucci, Ritagliare l'astrazione. I collage di Carla Badiali realizzato in occasione della prima edizione della Borsa di studio 2021, "Ricerche e riscritture per la storia dell'arte contemporanea", edito da Arbor Editions. Il progetto della Borsa di Studio, rivolto alla ricerca su temi e questioni importanti della storia dell'arte contemporanea, è stato avviato in piena pandemia, da Carla Subrizi e Gianfranco Baruchello, per introdurre un nuovo filone di ricerca tra le attività della Fondazione. La pubblicazione di Minnucci indaga l'opera di Carla Badiali (1907-1992), figura molto importante dell'astrattismo italiano e attiva già dagli anni '30, in stretta relazione con il gruppo degli astrattisti comaschi. Questo lavoro restituisce profondità all'importanza e all'originalità del lavoro e della ricerca artistica di Badiali, offuscate da un'insufficiente attenzione. Il saggio di Minnucci tratta in maniera particolare l'attività legata ai collage dell'artista, andando quindi a riscoprire una tecnica su cui Badiali ha lavorato e riflettuto a lungo durante la sua carriera. Il libro è il primo di una collana editoriale che la Fondazione Baruchello, in collaborazione con Arbor Editions, ha scelto di dedicare a temi dell'arte contemporanea ancora non sufficientemente studiati o che necessitano oggi di una rilettura che possa introdurre nuove prospettive di studio e ricerca. RITAGLIARE L'ASTRAZIONE. I COLLAGE DI CARLA BADIALI

Minnucci, Roberta. "Impoverishing signs to reduce them to their archetypes: an Introduction to Arte Povera" in 'Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses', edited by Roberta Minnucci, Stephen Nelson, Paul Bonaventura, (London: Estorick Foundation), 2017.

in Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences, British Responses, edited by Roberta Minnucci, Stephen Nelson, Paul Bonaventura, London: Estorick Foundation, 2017

Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition "Poor Art / Arte Povera: Italian Influences... more

Minnucci, Roberta. Jannis Kounellis An Epic Journey With No Return

Art Journal , 2023

Review of the Exhibition "Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts" curated by Vincenzo de Bellis and Kit Ham... more

Minnucci, Roberta. “Rome Awards: Rome and the Foreign Gaze: The Reinterpretation of Classical Antiquity in Contemporary Art in the 1960s and 1970s.” Papers of the British School at Rome 90 (2022): 365–366.

Papers of the British School at Rome , Oct 1, 2022

Minnucci, Roberta. "Heaps of Rags and Double Visions: The Interpretation of the Classical Venus in Arte Povera" in 'IKON Journal of Iconographic Studies', vol. 13 "The Afterlife of Antiquity' (2020)

IKON Journal of Iconographic Studies, 2020

This article examines the reception of the classical Venus in Arte Povera through two case studie... more This article examines the reception of the classical Venus in Arte Povera through two case studies: Venus of the Rags (1967- 1974) by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mimesis (1975-1976) by Giulio Paolini. By adopting a cultural biographical approach, the reception of the original archetype, i.e. the Greek lost original Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, is investigated through its replicas and imitations, specifically the Roman copy, known as the Medici Venus, for the work of Paolini, and Venus with the Apple by the Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvalsden for Pistoletto. The use of ready-made replicas prompts a discussion on the reproducibility of sculpture and the dichotomy between the original and the copy, while an analysis of the materiality of the sculptures makes it possible to shed light on the role of the plaster casts in the history of art and the references evoked by the use of different materials, including those with kitsch associations. The choice of Venus as a subject is analysed as connected to a meditation on the concept of beauty, both intended as an aesthetic ideal within the domain of art and in its large variety of feminine versions. Lastly, the reception of classical sculpture will be analysed from a perspective of continuity with the past and with Mediterranean artistic heritage, as an attempt at reclaiming an endangered cultural memory at a time of rapid changes and international influences.

"Out of Focus: Anna Piva's Creative Contribution to the work of Giulio Paolini" - Workshop 'Couple and Artistic Collaboration in Modern Italy', American Academy in Rome

Casting the Past: Arte Povera and Classical Sculpture – 2023 Magazzino Lecture Series

2023 Magazzino Lecture Series "Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue" Curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci

Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture seri... more Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture series which brings together some of the leading scholars of Arte Povera to present new perspectives on postwar Italian art. The 2023 Lecture Series, Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci, Magazzino's 2022-23 Scholar-in-Residence, will address research topics which are strictly interconnected with Arte Povera's relationship with the past and its artistic exchanges with the United States.

Between Cultural Diplomacy and Counterculture: Eugenio Battisti, Alan Solomon, and the Exhibition Young Italians in 1968

by Raffaele Bedarida and Roberta Minnucci

Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, 2023

Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture seri... more Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to present the fifth iteration of the annual spring lecture series which brings together some of the leading scholars of Arte Povera to present new perspectives on postwar Italian art. The 2023 Lecture Series, Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue, curated by Dr. Roberta Minnucci, Magazzino's 2022-23 Scholar-in-Residence, will address research topics which are strictly interconnected with Arte Povera's relationship with the past and its artistic exchanges with the United States.

Lecture “Arte Povera and Turin: An Artistic Geography”. Invited Speaker for the Master's Program of the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York, 2022.

“A Contemporary Take on Trompe l’Oeil: Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Mirror Paintings”, Association for Art History Annual Conference, University of Birmingham, 2021

Trompe l'oeil, meaning 'deceiving the eye', describes works of art and objects with illusionistic... more Trompe l'oeil, meaning 'deceiving the eye', describes works of art and objects with illusionistically beguiling surfaces and forms. The production of such works can now be identified as a global historical phenomenon, with a broad array of examples ranging from the familiar Palissy wares, to Edward Collier's writing implements painting, to Chinese jade cabbages that have been challenging the material experience of visuality and countervisuality for hundreds of years. However, despite its long history of production, the ontology of trompe l'oeil artistic production and the reasons behind this illusory invention remain unexplored. Engaging with the concept of trompe l'oeil in expanded art-historical and visual fields of enquiry, across time and space, would allow us to probe the evolution of the pursuit of deceptive visual representation and the consumption of deceitful things in relation to both heuristic and contextual frames such as politics, religion, society and the economics of production. Accordingly, 'why trompe l'oeil?' will be the fundamental question addressed in this session. Papers might explore how different types of global trompe l'oeil art production have shaped the ways in which such art is produced, dispersed, consumed and conceptualised. Moreover, other artificial approaches to representing reality that developed alongside the concept of trompe l'oeil, such as Skeuomorphism, Cubism, Indeterminism, Naturalism, might also be considered. The primary aim of the session is to expose the rationale and motivation for trompe l'oeil art production by considering its different forms from a trans-historical and transspatial perspective and we invite papers that explore this through a range of different perspectives and methodological approaches.

"Between Artifice and Nature: Exploring Materiality in 1960s Italian Art", Invited Speaker, Fine Arts Talks, British School at Rome, 2022

Lecture "Conversazioni in gipsoteca: l’opera d’arte tra copia e frammento". Study Day on the oeuvre of Giulio Paolini 'L' artista ringrazia. Genealogie: le fonti artistiche e letterarie di Giulio Paolini', Teatro Niccolini and Museo Novecento, Florence, June 2022.

'L' artista ringrazia. Genealogie: le fonti artistiche e letterarie di Giulio Paolini' Giornata d... more

"Performing the Score: Writing, Music and Dance in Kounellis' performance 'Da inventare sul posto' ('To Invent on the Spot')". Conference "Writing / Performance", Royal College of Art, London, 2020

Conference "Writing / Performance", Royal College of Art, London, 2020

"Conflicting Bodies in Jannis Kounellis’ Performances", The Society for Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference, University of St Andrews, 2018

The Society for Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference - University of St Andrews, Nov 16, 2018

This paper will examine the role of the body in Jannis Kounellis' performative works. Having arri... more This paper will examine the role of the body in Jannis Kounellis' performative works. Having arrived in Italy from Greece at a young age to study in Rome, the artist soon became associated with the Italian avant-garde group Arte Povera. In the early 1970s, Kounellis produced several performative works in which he impersonated the god Apollo by wearing a mask made of white plaster. In the performance Untitled, staged for the first time in March 1973 at La Salita Gallery in Rome, Kounellis presented himself motionless, seated behind a table on which fragmented body parts in plaster were displayed. His face was covered by a mask of Apollo, while a flautist was playing an excerpt from Mozart. Central to the interpretation of the work is the notion of conflicting bodies. The opposition between the artist's body and the plaster cast reproductions, that is between living and inanimate bodies, but also whole and fragmented, real and artificial, illustrate the central role of the body in the artist's practice. Do the sectioned body parts on the table illustrate the lost wholeness of a remote past or the alienation of the present condition? Why does the artist mask his identity by wearing the features of an idealised, unreal, and yet fragmented face? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining the way in which the body is employed and depicted in the work, thus unveiling its complex layers of meaning.

“Reinterpreting Antiquity through the Photography of Sculpture: Giulio Paolini’s Sappho series (1968–1981)”, 'Echoes. A Symposium on Classic-Modern Relations', University of Birmingham, 2018.

Ritagliare l'astrazione. I collage di Carla Badiali

Ritagliare l'astrazione. I Collage di Carla Badiali., 2022

La Fondazione Baruchello è lieta di presentare il libro di Roberta Minnucci, Ritagliare l'astrazi... more La Fondazione Baruchello è lieta di presentare il libro di Roberta Minnucci, Ritagliare l'astrazione. I collage di Carla Badiali realizzato in occasione della prima edizione della Borsa di studio 2021, "Ricerche e riscritture per la storia dell'arte contemporanea", edito da Arbor Editions. Il progetto della Borsa di Studio, rivolto alla ricerca su temi e questioni importanti della storia dell'arte contemporanea, è stato avviato in piena pandemia, da Carla Subrizi e Gianfranco Baruchello, per introdurre un nuovo filone di ricerca tra le attività della Fondazione. La pubblicazione di Minnucci indaga l'opera di Carla Badiali (1907-1992), figura molto importante dell'astrattismo italiano e attiva già dagli anni '30, in stretta relazione con il gruppo degli astrattisti comaschi. Questo lavoro restituisce profondità all'importanza e all'originalità del lavoro e della ricerca artistica di Badiali, offuscate da un'insufficiente attenzione. Il saggio di Minnucci tratta in maniera particolare l'attività legata ai collage dell'artista, andando quindi a riscoprire una tecnica su cui Badiali ha lavorato e riflettuto a lungo durante la sua carriera. Il libro è il primo di una collana editoriale che la Fondazione Baruchello, in collaborazione con Arbor Editions, ha scelto di dedicare a temi dell'arte contemporanea ancora non sufficientemente studiati o che necessitano oggi di una rilettura che possa introdurre nuove prospettive di studio e ricerca. RITAGLIARE L'ASTRAZIONE. I COLLAGE DI CARLA BADIALI