Vesper No. 9 | The Adversary | Fall-Winter 2023
Gianpaolo Cacciottolo
Chronicle of a Duel. Bonito Oliva vs. Celant
Keywords
Contemporary art, curatorial practice, Germano
Celant, Bonito Oliva, exhibition
This paper aims at reconstructing and
examining the main stages of the competition between two nodal figures of the
art scene in Italy: Achille Bonito Oliva and Germano Celant. Since the
Seventies to the present day the rivalry between the two has flared up in the
elastic spaces of criticism and exhibitions, spaces which this same rivalry has
galvanised in a decisive way. Two different models of criticism, but also of
curating, that have marked the recent history of contemporary art in Italy and
beyond. Retracing the stages of the cultural competition between Achille Bonito
Oliva and Germano Celant means identifying the critical junctures that have
marked the Italian and international art scene over the last fifty years: the
position and function of the critic, the value of writing (critical and curatorial),
the exhibition as a space for verification and experimentation, the affirmation
of the curator to the detriment of the critic in a now global dimension, the
importance of documents and of the archive in critical and curatorial
practices, the relationship with institutions.
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