Civitellian Franco Baldasso (CRF 2017) to speak at the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) in the Metaphysical Years Lecture Series.
This chronological lecture series offers an overview of the birth and development of pittura metafisica (metaphysical art) against the backdrop of World War I as well as in the context of the post-war years in Italy. The presentations explore significant literary trends of the time along with socio-cultural events of the short yet crucially important period covered by CIMA’s 2018-19 exhibition, Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916-1920: Morandi, Sironi, and Carrà.
Franco Baldasso is Director of the Italian Program at Bard College, NY, where he is Assistant Professor of Italian Studies. In his research, Baldasso examines the complex relations between Fascism and Modernism, the legacy of political violence in Italy, and finally the idea of the Mediterranean in modern and contemporary aesthetics. He authored a book on Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, Il cerchio di gesso. Primo Levi narratore e testimone (Pendragon, 2007), co-edited an issue of Nemla-Italian Studies (“Italy in WWII and the Transition to Democracy: Memory, Fiction, Histories”) and contributes to publicbooks.org. Baldasso is a member of the Advisory Board of the Italian journal Allegoria, as well as the scientific committee of the Archivio della Memoria della Grande Guerra of the Centro Studi sulla Grande Guerra “P. Pieri” in Vittorio Veneto (TV). In summer 2017, he held a CIMA Affiliated Fellowship at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation for his forthcoming book, Against Redemption: Literary Dissent during the Transition to Post-Fascism in Italy. Franco will speak on the year 1916 in Italy.
Tue, November 13, 2018
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
CIMA – Center for Italian Modern Art
421 Broome Street
4th Floor
New York, NY 10013