Italian Dawdlers. Urban Drift in Nineties' Artistic Practice

Abstract

In Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana, Adachiara Zevi writes about the double nature of the Italian Nineties, divided between the mediatic dematerialization of the artist’s body and its physical presence in a specific place. It is a dichotomy synthesized in the works of some Italian artists that began working in that decade. More or less directly inspired by the Situationist experiences, the Fluxus' practices, and Gordon Matta-Clark's "an-architecture", on the one hand, they focus on peripheral spaces of the globalized society, modified by the contemporary process of Post-Industrialisation, on the other, they show a more general interest in crossing and "re-conquering" urban areas. In both cases, along with the physical presence of the artist, the video and photographic documentation plays a fundamental part and, sometimes, it assumes the function of a work of art. The essay aims to describe the historical and theoretical background of this tendency and to analyze its various artistic manifestations developed between the Nineties and the new millennium: tour guides in peripheral areas organized by Cesare Pietroiusti, Luca Vitone's documentation of his ordinary path, Stalker's exploration of the "actual territories", Cesare Viel's forays in Genoa's harbor, urbanistic investigations led by Gruppo A12, and photographic collages of peripheric areas created by Botto&Bruno.