Scholarly record

FRANCESCA ALINOVI AND THE KIDS OF THE BRONX

E. Stochino

Abstract

This study aims to present the sensitivity of the Bologna curator, Francesca Alinovi, who showed great interest in the emergent artistic expressions of her times, amongst which Writing. Francesca Alinovi’s sensitivity towards Writing emerged during her visit to New York City in 1980, a trip on which she saw Graffiti works and gain first-hand experience of their historical and social context. The sense of unease and contestation of mainstream culture which Alinovi found in New York led her to draw parallels, within certain limits, between 1980’s Bologna and the Bronx. In that period, Bologna was at the forefront of the Italian Avant-garde in all of its forms. Basing herself on this parallelism, her perception of certain people’s sense of social exclusion and the disagreement some people felt concerning the world of culture and Italian politics, Alinovi was inspired to set up the Arte di frontier. New York graffiti” exhibition. Following the foundation of DAMS, a university faculty dedicated to the study of Drama, Art, Music and the Performing Arts, an initiative spearheaded by Umberto Eco, and consequent to the rise of the Movimento del 1977, along with Milan, Bologna represented the Italian city more receptive to new forms of artistic expression, emergent both in Italy and abroad. In those years, Bologna played host to the likes of Keith Haring, Basquiat, Marina Abramovich, Dario Fo and Fabio Munari. After the“Arte di frontier. New York graffiti” exhibition, Alinovi invited the Bronxite artists to Italy. In so doing, she gave these New York artists the opportunity to interact both with their Italian Writer counterparts and with the Italian public [4].

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