Word: transavanguardia
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...fascinating as the show is, the concept of speed ultimately loses momentum. Small wonder, perhaps, given that the two most important Italian art movements of the second half of the 20th century, Arte Povera and Transavanguardia, were the antithesis of all things speedy: the former championed the use of humble, often recycled materials while the latter marked a return to painting after it fell out of fashion during the postmodern art movements of the '60s and '70s. And surely it is no mere cultural accident that Italy's biggest recent contribution to the international Zeitgeist is Carlo Petrini's Slow...
...appointed to oversee its structure and content. This year the task fell to a Neapolitan art critic named Achille Bonito Oliva. Bonito Oliva is a mini-celebrity in Italy, an imbonitore, or bustling promoter, of groups and movements, who gave the '80s its silliest piece of art jargon, "la transavanguardia," the "trans-avant-garde." He wanted to create a Biennale that would transcend national differences and illustrate "cultural nomadism." To put it charitably, his talents are not up to the task...
Along with an assortment of German neoexpressionists and many others besides, the three Italians were packaged in a sonorous phrase by a Roman critic: la transavanguardia, or the "trans-avant-garde." This clot of art jargon, like "post-modernism," means nothing definable. It merely points to a mood of eclectic revivalism, the assumption being that since progress in art is a myth, painting must perforce go crabwise, with many nostalgic glances backward. Under such a vague rubric, Chia looks a very apposite painter. Granted, neither he nor his fellow transavanguardisti get anywhere near the best German art of this generation...
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