Arte Ambientale, Urban Space, and Participatory Art

Download or read book Arte Ambientale, Urban Space, and Participatory Art written by Martina Tanga and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-22 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.