Abstraction and Memory in the 1980s in Italy. The “Astrazione Povera” Case

Abstract

In the 1980s the Italian art scene was marked by a revival of painting, expressed especially through neo-expressionistic figuration and appropriation. In opposition, the simplicity of form and color was the distinctive feature of a group formed in Rome in the mid-decade around the critic Filiberto Menna and known as “Astrazione Povera”. The stylistic choices of this group were far from appropriation. However, at the time, the attention was often focused on the relationship between these young artists and the work of post-war Italian abstraction masters. In this context, Menna identified a line of continuity in Italian non-figurative art, particularly in Roman art, which connected the Forma group to more recent abstraction and materialized in the formulation of an abstract memory. Since this subject remains unexplored, this contribution aims to reconstruct the terms of that continuity and the choice of abstraction in an art scene increasingly shaped by the advent of postmodernism, through an analysis of Menna's position and some significant exhibitions held between 1982 and 1988.