Martina Tanga
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Art of the Americas, Department Member
- Critical Theory, Contemporary Art, Social Theory, Architectural History, Modern Art, Cultural Semiotics, and 19 moreItaly 1970s, Aesthetics and Politics, Collective Action, 1960s and 1970s Art, Marxism, History of Art and Architecture, Art History, Social Media, New Media, Political Economy, Feminism, Feminist Theory, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Economic Sociology, Arts Education, Public Art, Art in Public Spaces, and European Postwar and Contemporary Artedit
- Martina Tanga is a modern and contemporary art historian and her research interests focus on institutional critique,... moreMartina Tanga is a modern and contemporary art historian and her research interests focus on institutional critique, alternative artistic media, art collectives, and social art practices. Her dissertation, entitled Arte Ambientale and Arte nel Sociale in Italian Art of the 1970s, looks to a number of Italian artists who chose to work on the margins of the art establishment, forming alternative exhibitions and self-managed groups.edit
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In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti—charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale—radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he... more
In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti—charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale—radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he strategically chose not to house any artworks within the confines of the gallery space. Instead, he sprawled documentary photographs, videos, texts, pamphlets, and audio recordings on tables like the products of field research. The artworks themselves were site-specific and located elsewhere in various towns and cities across the country. Adhering to the Biennale’s overarching theme of environment and decentralization, Crispolti championed artists working in Arte Ambientale (environmental art), who were making art located in the urban context and social reality. Yet, Crispolti turned the institution’s theme inside out: while visitors came to its center to see the art, they were thrust outwards towards the peripheries, and outside the city, where the actual ar...
Research Interests:
Working in 1970s Italy, a group of artists—namely Ugo La Pietra, Maurizio Nannucci, Francesco Somaini, Mauro Staccioli, Franco Summa, and Franco Vaccari—sought new spaces to create and exhibit art. Looking beyond the gallery, they... more
Working in 1970s Italy, a group of artists—namely Ugo La Pietra, Maurizio Nannucci, Francesco Somaini, Mauro Staccioli, Franco Summa, and Franco Vaccari—sought new spaces to create and exhibit art. Looking beyond the gallery, they generated sculptural, conceptual, and participatory interventions, called Arte Ambientale (Environmental Art), situated in the city streets. Their experiments emerged at a time of cultural crisis when fierce domestic terrorism aggravated an already fragile political situation. To confront the malaise, these artists embraced a position of artistic autonomy and social critique, democratically connecting the city's inhabitants through direct art practices.
Research Interests: Art History, Public Art, Urban Planning, Italian art, Environmental Art, and 12 moreSculpture, Democracy, Conceptual Art, Social Practice, Autonomia, Urban Art, Participatory and Relational Arts, Socially engaged Art, Architecture and Public Spaces, Socially Engaged Art, Italian Art, and Arte Ambientale
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020—a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis—museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to... more
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020—a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis—museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to struggle to maintain outward relevance in these bleak and uncertain times. What if, instead of being reactive, museums are proactive; instead of being defensive, they model social change? What if this change comes first from within? What if they rebuild differently, not guided by an insidious corporate model but one that places access, diversity, community, care, and people at its center? What if overhauling the internal staff structure—the static, hierarchical power dynamic, departmental silos, and over-bureaucratization of larger institutions—results in a museum that reflects twenty-first-century ideals of democracy? Let’s envision a different museum staff structure inspired by feminist theory, social entrepreneurship, and grassroots organizations.
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In the heart of Boston, at the intersection of Blackstone and Hanover Streets, a cornucopia of bronze-cast comestibles — apples, bananas and lettuce — sit embedded in the concrete pavement (Figure 1). Underfoot, their highly polished... more
In the heart of Boston, at the intersection of Blackstone and Hanover Streets, a cornucopia of bronze-cast comestibles — apples, bananas and lettuce — sit embedded in the concrete pavement (Figure 1). Underfoot, their highly polished surfaces are barely detectable, their forms worn down by the steady stream of foot traffic. The apples, especially, have lost some of their detail: the indentation of the stamen is barely visible in the round, glossy sphere. These elements are strewn on the ground, in no particular order, together with flattened wooden baskets, cardboard crates, plastic six-pack rings and other containing material. Some of them are now so ragged they are no longer recognizable. Together, they form Boston-based public artist Mags Harries’ work titled Asaroton, first installed in 1976. The artwork’s site is known as Haymarket, where there was, and still is, a year-round, open-air market on Fridays and Saturdays from dawn until dusk. Harries chose this site because she wanted to integrate her work with the activities of the street vendors. On market days the bronze fruits and crates intermix with the refuse fallen from the stalls. When the market is not active, Asaroton serves as a marker for the location’s activities. The sculpture is, in a way, dormant during the week, and reanimated by the bustling of sellers and shoppers during market hours. In her unconventional choice of site and installation in the ground, Harries intended her work to be used — walked on and intertwined with human activity. “I want to see it in transition — with real garbage on it, when it’s sticky, when it’s wet,” Harries remarked. The work is thus meant to be part of the landscape, fused with the socioeconomic realities, and in dialogue with proceedings of everyday life. Although Asaroton is made out of a traditionally durable material for public art, it was always part of the artist’s original conceit that the work would be worn away over time. The transformation of the present into history and the effects of the passage of time are literally and metaphorically embedded within Asaroton. Just as fruit is fresh at first and eventually rots, so too the bronze cast of fruits become worn into the ground. Thinking about history longitudinally, Harries conceived Asaroton as being both specific to the historical moment of its
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This essay will explore how radical art practices intersected with political activist stances during the 1970s in art projects situated in the urban environment that actively engaged audience participation. Artists’ abandonment of... more
This essay will explore how radical art practices intersected with political activist stances during the 1970s in art projects situated in the urban environment that actively engaged audience participation. Artists’ abandonment of institutional art spaces prompted them to expand their art practice into the city’s streets and piazzas. Three specific artists projects will be analyzed in relation to Autonomia ’s alternative critical attitudes: Ugo La Pietra’s Conquista dello spazio (Conquest of Space) created in Milan in 1971, Franco Summa’s NO carried out in Pescara’s city center in 1974, and Maurizio Nannucci’s Parole/mots/word/woter from 1976.
Research Interests:
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020-a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis-museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to... more
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020-a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis-museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to struggle to maintain outward relevance in these bleak and uncertain times. What if, instead of being reactive, museums are proactive; instead of being defensive, they model social change? What if this change comes first from within? What if they rebuild differently, not guided by an insidious corporate model but one that places access, diversity, community, care, and people at its center? What if overhauling the internal staff structure-the static, hierarchical power dynamic, departmental silos, and overbureaucratization of larger institutions-results in a museum that reflects twentyfirst-century ideals of democracy? Let's envision a different museum staff structure inspired by feminist theory, social entrepreneurship, and grassroots organizations.
Research Interests:
This essay will explore how radical art practices intersected with political activist stances during the 1970s in art projects situated in the urban environment that actively engaged audience participation. Artists’ abandonment of... more
This essay will explore how radical art practices intersected with political activist stances during the 1970s in art projects situated in the urban environment that actively engaged audience participation. Artists’ abandonment of institutional art spaces prompted them to expand their art practice into the city’s streets and piazzas. Three specific artists projects will be analyzed in relation to Autonomia ’s alternative critical attitudes: Ugo La Pietra’s Conquista dello spazio (Conquest of Space) created in Milan in 1971, Franco Summa’s NO carried out in Pescara’s city center in 1974, and Maurizio Nannucci’s Parole/mots/word/woter from 1976.
Research Interests:
In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti-charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale-radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he... more
In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti-charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale-radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he strategically chose not to house any artworks within the confines of the gallery space. Instead, he sprawled documentary photographs, videos, texts, pamphlets, and audio recordings on tables like the products of field research. The artworks themselves were site-specific and located elsewhere in various towns and cities across the country. Adhering to the Biennale's overarching theme of environment and decentralization, Crispolti championed artists working in Arte Ambientale (environmental art), who were making art located in the urban context and social reality. Yet, Crispolti turned the institution's theme inside out: while visitors came to its center to see the art, they were thrust outwards towards the peripheries, and outside in the city, where th...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020-a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis-museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to... more
Facing multiple unprecedented calamities throughout 2020-a global pandemic, economic upheaval, social turmoil, and climate crisis-museums shuttered, decimated their staff, and gutted their organizational structures. Now, they seem to struggle to maintain outward relevance in these bleak and uncertain times. What if, instead of being reactive, museums are proactive; instead of being defensive, they model social change? What if this change comes first from within? What if they rebuild differently, not guided by an insidious corporate model but one that places access, diversity, community, care, and people at its center? What if overhauling the internal staff structure-the static, hierarchical power dynamic, departmental silos, and overbureaucratization of larger institutions-results in a museum that reflects twentyfirst-century ideals of democracy? Let's envision a different museum staff structure inspired by feminist theory, social entrepreneurship, and grassroots organizations.
Research Interests:
In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti-charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale-radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he... more
In 1976, art historian and curator Enrico Crispolti-charged with organizing the show, Ambiente come Sociale, for the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale-radically rethought the exhibition form. In an unconventional move, he strategically chose not to house any artworks within the confines of the gallery space. Instead, he sprawled documentary photographs, videos, texts, pamphlets, and audio recordings on tables like the products of field research. The artworks themselves were site-specific and located elsewhere in various towns and cities across the country. Adhering to the Biennale's overarching theme of environment and decentralization, Crispolti championed artists working in Arte Ambientale (environmental art), who were making art located in the urban context and social reality. Yet, Crispolti turned the institution's theme inside out: while visitors came to its center to see the art, they were thrust outwards towards the peripheries, and outside in the city, where the actual artworks were sited. The ingenuity of this action, and the re-conception of what could constitute installation art, is evident when Crispolti's exhibition is compared to Germano Celant's 1976 Biennale show Ambiente/Arte, a diachronic art historical study of this new art medium. While Celant presented self-referential examples based on formal qualities, Crispolti exponentially broadened the boundaries of installation art to include the environment, urban context, social questions, and political contingency. This paper examines Crispolti's curato-rial strategy as it aligned, but also critiqued, the Biennale as a cultural institution. Furthermore, it frames the exhibition as a medium for artistic innovation, particularly in the definition of environment and installation art.
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Boston-based public artist Mag’s Harries sculpture Asaroton is now considered a cherished landmark in the urban landscape, but at the time of its creation in 1976, it was steeped in controversy, as it engaged with contentious topics... more
Boston-based public artist Mag’s Harries sculpture Asaroton is now considered a cherished landmark in the urban landscape, but at the time of its creation in 1976, it was steeped in controversy, as it engaged with contentious topics regarding class, race and gender. The piece was commissioned as part of the Boston Bicentennial celebrations, and thus Harries conceived it thinking about whose history, which people, and what audience this artwork was addressing. Located on the site of Haymarket, the sculpture was meant to honor the market peddlers, many of whom were descendants of multiple generations of North Enders. However, they considered the work an epitaph, as the recent urban renewal projects in Boston had displaced their market to make way for a supposedly more efficient and clean city of the future. Harries inserted a Boston Globe newspaper with headlines that many felt were incendiary: one line about South Boston busing, which hit a nerve in regards to the tense race relations, and another about an Icelandic women’s strike, which highlighted the feminist movement. This paper contextualizes Asaroton to highlight the sociocultural frictions present at the time in Boston, which were largely due to the rampant urban renewal projects of the 1950s and ‘60s.
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Catalogue Essay for "Sculpting With Air: Ian McMahon and Jong Oh" at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, April 20--September 30, 2018.
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Catalogue essay for the exhibition "Let It All Hang! 1982, A Year of Collecting at deCordova" at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, April--September 2017.
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A particular type of abstraction flourished in painterly practices in America, France and Italy throughout the 1950s. The works that formed the core of the movements known as Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel and Gruppo dei Otto... more
A particular type of abstraction flourished in painterly practices in America, France and Italy throughout the 1950s. The works that formed the core of the movements known as Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel and Gruppo dei Otto displayed a defiant rejection of figurative art through a bold, nonconformist visual language steeped in a rhetoric of freedom. They emerged at a time when politics positions were becoming increasingly entrenched at the beginning of the Cold War in the late 1940s. The looming war made a neutral position nearly impossible for artists throughout the following decades.
The pervasive academic interpretation has long been that Realism became the sanctioned visual language of Communism during the 1950s while Abstraction came to embody democracy. This interpretation, while somewhat accurate for the latter half of the decade, does not grasp the nuanced visual politics of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In actuality, investigation of the painterly practices in both America and Western Europe during this time suggests that a certain type of abstraction functioned as a contentious visual language for a wholly separate political and cultural entity, the independent left.
The pervasive academic interpretation has long been that Realism became the sanctioned visual language of Communism during the 1950s while Abstraction came to embody democracy. This interpretation, while somewhat accurate for the latter half of the decade, does not grasp the nuanced visual politics of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In actuality, investigation of the painterly practices in both America and Western Europe during this time suggests that a certain type of abstraction functioned as a contentious visual language for a wholly separate political and cultural entity, the independent left.
Call for Papers: Public Monuments and Sculpture in Postwar Europe EPCAF (European Postwar and Contemporary Art Forum) sponsored panel at the CAA 2019 Chair: Martina Tanga, Independent Art Historian and Curator at deCordova Sculpture Park... more
Call for Papers: Public Monuments and Sculpture in Postwar Europe
EPCAF (European Postwar and Contemporary Art Forum) sponsored panel at the CAA 2019
Chair: Martina Tanga, Independent Art Historian and Curator at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
DEADLINE: August 6, 2018
martina.tanga@gmail.com
http://www.collegeart.org/programs/conference/cfp
EPCAF (European Postwar and Contemporary Art Forum) sponsored panel at the CAA 2019
Chair: Martina Tanga, Independent Art Historian and Curator at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
DEADLINE: August 6, 2018
martina.tanga@gmail.com
http://www.collegeart.org/programs/conference/cfp
Research Interests:
Postwar Italian Art History Today brings fresh critical consideration to the parameters and impact of Italian art and visual culture studies of the past several decades. Taking its cue from the thirty-year anniversary of curator Germano... more
Postwar Italian Art History Today brings fresh critical consideration to the parameters and impact of Italian art and visual culture studies of the past several decades. Taking its cue from the thirty-year anniversary of curator Germano Celant's landmark exhibition at PS1 in New York – The Knot – this volume presents innovative case studies and emphasizes new methodologies deployed in the study of postwar Italian art as a means to evaluate the current state of the field. Included are fifteen essays that each examine, from a different viewpoint, the issues, concerns, and questions driving postwar Italian art history. The editors and contributors call for a systematic reconsideration of the artistic origins of postwar Italian art, the terminology that is used to describe the work produced, and key personalities and institutions that promoted and supported the development and marketing of this art in Italy and abroad.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Sharon Hecker (Independent, USA) and Marin R. Sullivan (Keene State College, USA)
Section I – Reconsidering the Weight of Italy
1.“Yes, but are you Italian?:” Considering the Legacy of Italianità in Postwar and Contemporary Italian Art
Laura Petican (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA)
2.Learning from Artists. Methodological Notes on Post-war Italian Art History
Denis Viva (University of Trento and University of Udine, Italy)
3.Gianni Pettena and Ugo La Pietra. Crossing the Boundaries between Theory and Practice
Silvia Bottinelli (School of the Museum of Fine Art-Tufts University, USA)
4.Our Lady of Warka: Gino De Dominicis and the Search for Immortality
Gabriele Guercio (Independent, Italy)
Section II – Re-Imagining Realism
5.Transatlantic Exchanges. Piero Dorazio: Non-Objective Art vs. Abstract Expressionism?
Davide Colombo (University of Parma, Italy)
6.Gleaning Italia Gleaning Italian Pop, 1960-66: the 1964 Venice Biennale, Renato Mambor's 'Thread', and Pop as a Global Phenomenon
Christopher Bennett (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA)
7.Photography, visual poetry and radical architecture in the early works of Franco Vaccari
Nicoletta Leonardi (Turin Academy of Fine Arts and University of California Florence Study Center, Italy)
Section III –Rethinking Modes of Patronage
8.Buying Marino Marini: The American Market for Italian Art after WWII
Antje Gamble (Murray State University, USA)
9.A House No Longer Divided: Patronage, Pluralism, and Creative Freedom in Italian Pre- and Postwar Art
Laura Moure Cecchini (Colgate University, USA)
10.Co-research and Art: Danilo Montaldi's Horizontal Production of Knowledge
Jacopo Galimberti (British Academy, University of Manchester, UK)
11.Shaping and Reshaping: Private and Institutional Patronage
Martina Tanga (Independent, USA)
Section IV – Reassessing Arte Povera
12.Isolated Fragments: Disentangling the Relationship Between Arte Povera and Medardo Rosso
Sharon Hecker (Independent, Italy)
13.Gilberto Zorio's Radical Fluidity
Elizabeth Mangini (California College of the Arts, USA)
14.Summer Solstice A.D. MCMLXIII. Luciano Fabro's Early Works
Giorgio Zanchetti (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)
15.Transatlantic Arte Povera
Raffaele Bedarida (Cooper Union, USA)
Bibliography
Index
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Sharon Hecker (Independent, USA) and Marin R. Sullivan (Keene State College, USA)
Section I – Reconsidering the Weight of Italy
1.“Yes, but are you Italian?:” Considering the Legacy of Italianità in Postwar and Contemporary Italian Art
Laura Petican (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, USA)
2.Learning from Artists. Methodological Notes on Post-war Italian Art History
Denis Viva (University of Trento and University of Udine, Italy)
3.Gianni Pettena and Ugo La Pietra. Crossing the Boundaries between Theory and Practice
Silvia Bottinelli (School of the Museum of Fine Art-Tufts University, USA)
4.Our Lady of Warka: Gino De Dominicis and the Search for Immortality
Gabriele Guercio (Independent, Italy)
Section II – Re-Imagining Realism
5.Transatlantic Exchanges. Piero Dorazio: Non-Objective Art vs. Abstract Expressionism?
Davide Colombo (University of Parma, Italy)
6.Gleaning Italia Gleaning Italian Pop, 1960-66: the 1964 Venice Biennale, Renato Mambor's 'Thread', and Pop as a Global Phenomenon
Christopher Bennett (University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA)
7.Photography, visual poetry and radical architecture in the early works of Franco Vaccari
Nicoletta Leonardi (Turin Academy of Fine Arts and University of California Florence Study Center, Italy)
Section III –Rethinking Modes of Patronage
8.Buying Marino Marini: The American Market for Italian Art after WWII
Antje Gamble (Murray State University, USA)
9.A House No Longer Divided: Patronage, Pluralism, and Creative Freedom in Italian Pre- and Postwar Art
Laura Moure Cecchini (Colgate University, USA)
10.Co-research and Art: Danilo Montaldi's Horizontal Production of Knowledge
Jacopo Galimberti (British Academy, University of Manchester, UK)
11.Shaping and Reshaping: Private and Institutional Patronage
Martina Tanga (Independent, USA)
Section IV – Reassessing Arte Povera
12.Isolated Fragments: Disentangling the Relationship Between Arte Povera and Medardo Rosso
Sharon Hecker (Independent, Italy)
13.Gilberto Zorio's Radical Fluidity
Elizabeth Mangini (California College of the Arts, USA)
14.Summer Solstice A.D. MCMLXIII. Luciano Fabro's Early Works
Giorgio Zanchetti (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy)
15.Transatlantic Arte Povera
Raffaele Bedarida (Cooper Union, USA)
Bibliography
Index
Research Interests:
Working in 1970s Italy, a group of artists—namely Ugo La Pietra, Maurizio Nannucci, Francesco Somaini, Mauro Staccioli, Franco Summa, and Franco Vaccari—sought new spaces to create and exhibit art. Looking beyond the gallery, they... more
Working in 1970s Italy, a group of artists—namely Ugo La Pietra, Maurizio Nannucci, Francesco Somaini, Mauro Staccioli, Franco Summa, and Franco Vaccari—sought new spaces to create and exhibit art. Looking beyond the gallery, they generated sculptural, conceptual, and participatory interventions, called Arte Ambientale (Environmental Art), situated in the city streets. Their experiments emerged at a time of cultural crisis when fierce domestic terrorism aggravated an already fragile political situation. To confront the malaise, these artists embraced a position of artistic autonomy and social critique, democratically connecting the city's inhabitants through direct art practices.