Giovanni Lista is an Italian

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogu ...

born in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

on February 13, 1943, at

Castiglione del Lago Castiglione del Lago is a town in the province of Perugia of Umbria (central Italy), on the southwest corner of Lake Trasimeno. Orvieto is south, Chiusi is to the south west, Arezzo is to the north west, Cortona is to the north and Perugia ...

(

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part ...

) and resides in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

. He is a specialist in the artistic cultural scene of the 1920s, particularly in

Futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects suc ...

Biography

He studied at universities in both Italy and in France until he permanently settled in

in February 1970. While teaching at the university, he became a researcher at the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

(National Centre for Scientific Research) in 1974. After being associated with the research laboratories directed by Denis Bablet and Louis Marin, he was appointed Director of Research in 1992. He founded the review ''Ligeia, dossiers sur l'art'' (Ligeia, Art Dossiers) in 1988. Its name is taken from the myth of the Greek siren cited by

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

. As a member of AICA (International Association of Art Critics) and SGDL (Society of Men of Letters of France), he was awarded the Georges Jamati Prize for the best essay on the theatre, arts and social science published in France in 1989; both the Filmcritica Prize for the best essay on cinema and photography published in Italy and the Giubbe Rosse Prize for the best literary biography essay published in Italy in 2002; and the Venetian Academy Silver Medal in 2010for the ''lectio magistralis'' (keynote speech) delivered at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In April 2011, the French Minister of Culture

Frédéric Mitterrand Frédéric Mitterrand (born 21 August 1947) is a French politician who served as Minister of Culture and Communication of France from 2009 to 2012 under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Throughout his career, he has been an actor, screenwriter, tele ...

awarded him the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. In June 2011, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano awarded him the title of Chevalier of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Contributions to art criticism

Between 1973 and 1988, Lista translated the writings of

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (; 22 December 1876 – 2 December 1944) was an Italian poet, editor, art theorist, and founder of the Futurist movement. He was associated with the utopian and Symbolist artistic and literary community Abbaye d ...

Luigi Russolo Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo (30 April 1885 – 4 February 1947) was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto ''The Art of Noises'' (1913). He is often regarded as one of ...

Umberto Boccioni Umberto Boccioni (, ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...

as well as the syntheses of plays, theoretical texts and manifestos of the Futurists by publishing several collections and anthologies which introduced and divulged the Italian

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

in France. At the same time he developed an original approach to the work of Fernand Léger,

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Jacques Villon Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963), also known as Gaston Duchamp, was a French Cubist and Abstract art, abstract painter and printmaker. Early life Born Émile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp in Damville, Eure, Damville, Eure, ...

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...

Raymond Duchamp-Villon Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor. Life and art Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Ducha ...

and

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

, dubbed "French

Cubo-Futurism Cubo-Futurism (also called Russian Futurism or Kubo-Futurizm) was an art movement that arose in early 20th century Russian Empire, defined by its amalgamation of the artistic elements found in Italian Futurism and French Analytical Cubism. Cubo- ...

". In 1976 he published the first biography of Marinetti, while beginning to analyse the Futurism founder's political ideas. After studying the political evolution of the Futurist movement, he explored and came to terms with the distinction, formulated by the Florentine Futurists, between "Futurism" and "Marinettism". He contributed in driving the Futurist scholars' attitude towards modernity by focusing on the sense of social and psychological trauma as a result of the industrial transformation. He criticised the different unitarian approaches of Futurist political ideas and in 1980 published the essay "Art and Politics: Left-Wing Futurism in Italy" (in Italian), thus completing his historiographic reconstruction of Futuristic ideology. Lista later explored Futurism's ties with anarchism, particularly tracing Marinetti's ties with the movement. In 1978 he inventoried the postal innovations of the Futurists, and established a new historiographic object: "Futuristic Postal Art", proclaiming the invention of

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Scho ...

by the avant-gardists of the 1920s. That same year, he began researching Futurist photography and the problematic relationship that the Futurists had with the new technological media to which he devoted several publications and a series of exhibits (Paris, Modena,

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, London and

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

1981–2009), particularly defining the specificity of Futurist aesthetic elaboration in the fields of photo-performance, photo-collage and

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final image ...

, the sandwiching of several negatives. He also found that Marinetti and associated Futurists held a diminished regard for photography's potential to display the entirety of human life. In 1982 he organised the ''Futurism: Abstraction and Modernity'' exhibit in Paris, which explored Futurist contributions to an abstract art centered on the tangible experience of reality. In 1982, and then in 1984, he published a two-volume general catalogue of the works of

Giacomo Balla Giacomo Balla (18 July 1871 – 1 March 1958) was an Italian painter, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. In his paintings he depicted light, movement and speed. He was concerned with expressing movement in his works, ...

, a Futuristic artist of whom he later organised a major retrospective (Milan, 2008). In 1983, in the book ''De Chirico and the Avant-Garde'', Lista assembled unpublished epistolary documentation on the relationship between Italian and French artists. He also studied

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly influ ...

's role in the evolution of avant-garde artistic culture during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Furthermore, he dedicated other essays to de Chirico, while also publishing a critical edition of the painter's writings on Metaphysical art. In 1983 at the Italian Cultural Institute, Hôtel Galliffet, in Paris, he organised ''The Futuristic Book'' exhibition, which revealed the extent of Futurist innovations in the areas of books-as-objects, books-as-typography, books-as-theatre, books-as-machines, graphic compositions, words-in-freedom plates, picture poetry. In 1985 he published ''Futurism'', a synthesis in which he rejects the "Second Futurism" formula used in Italy to define the period following Boccioni's death. He proposes a historiographic classification by decade of the different studies on the Futuristic movement: beginning with Plastic Dynamism for the first decade, then continuing with "Mechanical Art" for the 1920s and the "Aeroaesthetics" of the 1930s. Next, he expanded on the poetics of Mechanical Art by publishing an essay on

Vinicio Paladini Vinicio Paladini (Moscow, 21 June 1902 - Rome, 30 December 1971) was an Italian architect, painter and art theorist. Life and career Son of an Italian father and a Russian mother, Paladini was born in Moscow in 1902, but by 1903 he had already ...

, its originator. In 1989, he explored the osmosis between the plastic arts and the theatre in all the phases of Futurist practises relating to the theatre with the essay "The Futuristic Scene". In 1994 he devoted a biographical essay to

Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (born Marie Louise Fuller; January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928), also known as Louie Fuller and Loïe Fuller, was an American actress and dancer who was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques. Career Bor ...

in which he analysed multimedia dance as an anticipation of the Futurist aesthetics of this movement. He also directed the film montage ''Loie Fuller and Her Imitators'', which revealed Fuller's breadth and originality. That same year he also published an essay on sculptor

Medardo Rosso Medardo Rosso (; 21 June 1858 – 31 March 1928) was an Italian sculptor. He is considered, like his contemporary and admirer Auguste Rodin, to be an artist working in a post-Impressionist style. Biography and works Rosso was born in Turin, w ...

, and assembled his theoretical writings on Impressionist sculpture. In 1997, in the book ''The Modern Stage: World Encyclopaedia of the Performing Arts in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century (1945–1995)'', he investigates the different visual forms of scenic creation within the contemporary culture of imagery going beyond the dramatic text. In addition to traditional categories, such as opera, ballet, dance, circus and puppet shows, he lists the newer expressions of multimedia entertainment, dance theatre and artist's theatre. In 2001 he tackled the study of Futurist cinema and advanced its discovery by organising three major retrospectives (

Rovereto Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River. History Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Paris, 2001–2009). That same year, he published the book ''Futurism: Creation and Avant-garde'', in which he considers Futurism to be the highest manifestation of an identity ''Kunstwollen'', which has fertilised and nourished modern Italian art since the country's national unity was achieved. In 2003, he published the book ''The Black Sperm'' (in Italian), which raises major questions on the deep connection between

Eros In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the ear ...

and writing. In 2005 he published the essay " Libertine and Libertarian", showing, beyond the protean character of

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

, the philosophical libertine outlook as an ideological source of Dada. In 2009 he orgasmed the retrospective exhibit celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of the creation of the Futuristic movement in Milan. He took up his previous historiographic systematisation of Futurism, stressing its activist model, research in progress and the poetics of an ephemeralisation of art. In 2011 he published the book "

The Stella d’Italia The ''Stella d'Italia'' ("Star of Italy"), popularly known as ''Stellone d'Italia'' ("Great Star of Italy"), is a five-pointed white star, which has symbolized Italy for many centuries. It is the oldest national symbol of Italy, since it dates ...

" (star of Italy), an exhaustive essay on the origins and the history of the mythology of ''Stella Veneris'', the symbol of the Italian land's identity since the time of Ancient Rome. It features an extensive iconographic setting (works of art, monuments, illustrations, posters, decorative objects etc.) about the traditional allegorical representation of Italy: a draped woman with a mural crown surmounted by a star upon her head. Between 2002 and 2013, he published two essays, one on Enrico Prampolini, the artist who played a major role in the futuristic aero-painting, and the other on the "Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo da Vinci and the reinterpretation of it by avant-garde artists including the Futurists, the cubo-Futurists, the expressionists, and also the neoclassical artists of the "return to order" in thé Thirties and contemporary artists such Pistoletto, Nam June Pake, Dieter Appelt, Ontani and Arnold Skip. He also scrutinised Antoine Bourdelle's

Proto-Cubism Proto-Cubism (also referred to as Protocubism, Early Cubism, and Pre-Cubism or Précubisme) is an intermediary transition phase in the history of art chronologically extending from 1906 to 1910. Evidence suggests that the production of proto-Cubis ...

Auguste Herbin Auguste Herbin (29 April 1882 – 31 January 1960) was a French painter of modern art. He is best known for his Cubist and abstract paintings consisting of colorful geometric figures. He co-founded the groups Abstraction-Création and Salon des ...

's abstract art and

Alberto Magnelli Alberto Magnelli (1 July 1888 – 20 April 1971) was an Italian modern painter who was a significant figure in the post war Concrete art movement. Biography Magnelli was born in Florence on July 1, 1888. In 1907 he started painting and, d ...

; the theatrical innovations of

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

Pierre Albert-Birot Pierre Albert-Birot (22 April 1876 – 25 July 1967) was a French avant-garde poet, dramatist, and theater manager. He was a steadfast avant-garde during World War I, through the magazine ''Sic'' he created and published from 1916 to 1919. He wa ...

, Emile Malespine; and the dialectical repercussions and reversals of the formal ideas of Futurism as they appear in the authors, artists and neo avant-garde movements of the 20th century: Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Frank Gehry, Eugène Ionesco, Arte Povera, Poesia Visiva, process art, performance and Image-Theatre.

Major works

* ''Marinetti et le futurisme'', Éd. L'Âge d'homme, Lausanne, 1977. * ''L'Art postal futuriste'', Jean-Michel Place Éditeur, Paris, 1979. * ''Le Livre futuriste'', Éd. Panini, Modène-Paris, 1984. * ''I futuristi e al fotografia: creazione fotografica e immagine quotidiana'', Edizioni Panini, Modena, 1985. * ''Futurism'', Art Data, London, 2006. * ''La Scène futuriste'', Éd. du C.N.R.S., Paris, 1989. * ''De Chirico et l'avant-garde'', Éd. L'Âge d'homme, Lausanne, 1990. * ''Medardo Rosso, destin d'un sculpteur (1858–1928)'', Éd. L'Échoppe, Paris, 1994. * ''Marinetti, l'anarchiste du Futurisme'' (biography), Éd. Séguier, Paris, 1995. * ''La Scène moderne - Encyclopédie mondiale des arts du spectacle dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle'', Actes Sud, Arles-Paris, 1997. * ''Futurism'', Finest-Terrail, Paris-London, 2001. * ''Le Futurisme : création et avant-garde'', Éd. L'Amateur, Paris, 2001. * ''Futurism and Photography'', Merrel Publishers, London, 2001. * ''

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

libertin & libertaire'', Éd. L'Insolite, Paris, 2005. * '' Arte Povera'', Éd. Cinq Continents, Paris, 2006. * ''

Loïe Fuller Loie Fuller (born Marie Louise Fuller; January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928), also known as Louie Fuller and Loïe Fuller, was an American actress and dancer who was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques. Career Bor ...

, danseuse de la Belle Epoque'', Éd. Hermann, Paris, 2007. * ''Le Futurisme : Une avant-garde radicale'', Gallimard, coll. " Découvertes Gallimard" (nº 533), Paris, 2008, * ''Journal des Futurismes'', Éd. Hazan, Paris, 2008. * ''Le Cinéma futuriste'', Éd. du Centre Pompidou-Les Cahiers de Paris Expérimental, Paris, 2008. * ''Cinéma et photographie futuriste'', Skira-Flammarion, Paris, 2008. * ''

'', suivi de ''L'Art métaphysique'', Éd. Hazan, Paris, 2009. * ''

e la musica futurista'', Mudima, Milano, 2009. * ''Il Cinema futurista'', Le Mani-Microart's Edizioni, Genova, 2010. ISSN 1824-1417 * ''La Stella d’Italia'', Mudima, Milano, 2010. * ''Da Leonardo a Boccioni : l’Uomo vitruviano e l’arte moderna'', Mudima, Milano, 2012 * ''Lo Sperma nero, ovvero ‘sono dunque scrivo’'', Nerosubianco, Cuneo, 2013 * ''Enrico Prampolini, futurista europeo'', Carocci, Roma, 2013 * ''Le Futurisme, textes et manifestes'', 1909-1944, Éditions Champ Vallon, Ceyzérieux, 2015 * ''Fotografia futurista'', Edizioni Carla Sozzani, Milan, 2015 * ''Qu'est-ce que le futurisme ? / Dictionnaire des futuristes'', Gallimard, Paris, 2015 * ''Pinocchio nell’arte'', Mudima, Milan, 2017 * ''La Sculpture moderne, du primitivisme aux avant-gardes'', Editions Ligeia, Paris, 2018 * ''Giorgio De Chirico et l’invention du mannequin abstrait'', Éditions L’Échoppe, Paris, 2020

Interviews

* ''L'époque n'est plus au théâtre mais à la scène'
interview
in ''Libération'', May 21, 1997, Paris. * ''Era tutto di destra ? No, c'era anche la Futursinistra'
interview
in ''Il Giornale dell'Arte'', April 2009, Torino. * ''Alle origini dello stellone'
interview
in ''Il Giornale dell’Arte'', February 2011, Torino.

References and notes

* This article is a translation of the Wikipedia in French entitled "Giovanni Lista". * Archives de la Critique d'Art, Université de Rennes, Châteaugiron, France. *
Archives Art Critic
.

External links

*
Official site of Giovanni Lista
*
Ligeia, dossiers sur l’art : Official site of review
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lista, Giovanni 1943 births Living people People from Castiglione del Lago French art historians Italian art historians Italian art curators French male non-fiction writers