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Libro/Oggetto: Italian Artists’ Books 1960s–Now presents a concise history of Italian art through the form of the artist’s book. The artist’s book is extremely varied—in the imagery, language, medium, and content embraced by its author—and the wide range of examples selected for this exhibition emphasizes the possibilities of the genre. In many instances, in fact, the included works do not conform to the traditional structure of a book, or, for that matter, to any conventional art object. They are a hybrid form: book/art/object. Conceived as a complement to Combustione: Alberto Burri and America, Libro/Oggetto features works by Burri’s contemporaries and successors, creating a contextual framework for his production.
Libro/Oggetto includes work by 49 artists working in a wide array of artistic movements. For example, the Visual Poetry artists of the 1960s and ’70s used the book inventively to explore the combination of text and image. Arte Povera, which erupted from within a consumer society marked by mass production, sought to create work with “poor means.” For these artists, the book became a vehicle for constructing a new, raw visual vocabulary with everyday materials. During the late 1970s and early ’80s, the Transavanguardia movement dramatically expanded the definition of painting. For those artists, the book was the perfect format in which to show their new brand of figuration and narrative.
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