Whose Barbarianism? Exhibiting Antifascism, the Resistance, and the Holocaust in Postwar Italy and Now

ABSTRACT

The article discusses how antifascism, the Resistance, and the Holocaust have been exhibited in Italy since the end of Mussolini's regime. It uses the exhibition ‘Post Zang Tumb Tuuum,’ held at the Fondazione Prada in Milan in 2018, as a starting point to evaluate curatorial practices in the immediate postwar period. The author positions ‘Post Zang’ as a culmination of a curatorial tradition of Resistance shows, which have their roots in the mid-1940s. To this end, the author performs a close reading of the 2018 exhibition and its individual objects, casting a spotlight on the historical complexities that curator Germano Celant and his team largely elided in wall texts, the catalogue, or other interpretative materials made available to audiences. Through the interpretative framework of the 2018 Milan exhibition, the article highlights two issues: how fascism absorbed and neutralized political dissent by endorsing a relative artistic freedom; and how the Resistance became, in the immediate postwar period, a dominant narrative, which marginalized the Holocaust and promoted a redemptive interpretation of Italian victimhood, which partly absolved the Italians from both collusion with fascism and the Holocaust. This narrative blurred, absorbed and partly obfuscated testimonies and artistic narrations of the Holocaust, thereby in effect using the Holocaust instrumentally to the creation of anti-Nazi narratives of the Resistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Postwar Italy
• legacy of fascism
• resistance exhibitions
• missionary antifascism
• public Holocaust memory
• curatorial studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I presented research for this essay on two occasions: ‘Curating Fascism,’ an online workshop that I organized with Sharon Hecker, hosted by Cooper Union, Jan. 18–28, 2021; and the panel ‘What Now for the Resistance?’ chaired by Franco Baldasso and Daniele Biffanti at the 2021 American Association of Italian Studies Conference. I thank the participants and the Fondazione Carlo Levi in Rome for their feedback. I published part of this research in Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida, (eds.), Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (London-New York: Bloomsbury, 2022), pp. 172–85. I thank my co-editor for her precious comments on the manuscript and the permission to publish. A Visiting Researcher grant from DIRAAS, University of Genoa, Italy, supported the final stages of this research project. My gratitude goes to Rachel Perry, Agata Pietrasik, and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their invaluable comments to the manuscript.

2 See Jason Farago, “A New Italy, Imagined by Artists and Demagogues,” New York Times, Mar. 21, 2018; Jackie Wullschläger, “Back to the Futurists: Italian Art in the Era of Fascism,” Financial Times, Feb. 16, 2018; Natalia Aspesi, “Quanto era bella l’arte italiana nell’ora buia del fascismo,” Repubblica, Mar. 11, 2018; Riccardo Conti, “Post Zang Tumb Tuuum,” Domus, Feb. 20, 2018.

3 Wullschläger, “Back to the Futurists.”

4 See Rosalind McKever, “Displays of Power in Italian Art under Fascism,” Apollo, Apr. 9, 2018; Ester Coen, “Contro l’applauditissima mostra milanese,” Dagospia, Apr. 17, 2018. On the reception, see Raffaele Bedarida and Sharon Hecker, “Art Life, Politics, and the Seductiveness of Italian Fascism,” in Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism, pp. 49–62.

5 A first step for a collective reflection on this topic was the edited volume, Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism.

6 See Jane Chin Davidson and Nicola Foster, (eds.), Restaging Exhibitions, special issue of Journal of Curatorial Studies, vol. 8, no. 2 (2019).

7 See the ‘Absences’ section of Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism.

8 I am referring especially to the shows ‘Arte e Resistenza in Europa,’ organized by Mario De Micheli and held in Bologna and other cities in 1965, and ‘Arte della libertà. Antifascismo, guerra e liberazione in Europa (1925–1945),’ organized by Franco Sborgi in Genoa in 1995. See below for a more comprehensive list. Whereas historical and literary studies have assessed the historicization and memorialization of antifascism and the Resistance, nothing comparable has critically assessed art practice and exhibitions dedicated to Italian antifascism and the Resistance. See Filippo Focardi, La Guerra della memoria. La resistenza nel dibattito politico italiano dal 1945 ad oggi (Bari-Rome: Laterza, 2005); and Philip Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance (New York: Pelgrave Macmillan, 2011).

9 If the Prada show opened at the peak of right-wing populist Matteo Salvini’s ascent to power, this article was written in wake of the 2022 political elections, which saw the victory of Giorgia Meloni and her formation of the most unapologetically neo-fascist government in the history of the Italian Republic.

10 See Mario Mainetti, “Carlo Levi and Aligi Sassu,” p. 304; Mattia Patti, “Corrente,” p. 438; and Alberta Campitelli, “The Scuola Romana,” p. 526 in Germano Celant, (ed.), Post Zang Tumb Tuuum (Milan: Prada Foundation, 2018).

11 The notion of a civil war (as opposed to a liberation war) was theorized in Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1991).

12 Cornelia Mattiacci dismisses Maccari’s fascism as a juvenile mistake. See “Mino Maccari,” in Celant, Post Zang, p. 538.

13 See Michele Dantini, “Religioni politiche. La storia dell’arte alla prova degli studi su fascismo, antifascismo e Resistenza,” Il Capitale Culturale, vol. 18 (2018): pp. 183–201.

14 See David Ward, Antifascisms (Madison, NJ: Dickinson University Press, 1996).

15 Germano Celant, “Towards a Real and Contextual History,” in Celant, Post Zang, p. 30.

16 Ibid., p. 38.

17 This question is not unique to fascism. See Massimo Firpo and Germano Maifreda, L’eretico che salvò la Chiesa (Turin: Einaudi, 2019); and Hal Foster, “An Archival Impulse,” October, vol. 110 (Autumn 2004): pp. 3–22.

18 See Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present (New York: Norton, 2020).

19 “Nasce a Milano il Museo della Resistenza,” Repubblica – Milano, Dec. 9, 2019, https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2019/12/09/news/museo_della_resistenza_milano_fondi_governo_sede_piazzale_baiamonti-243007524/ (accessed Apr. 10, 2021). All translations from Italian are mine.

20 Ministero dell’Istruzione, “Linee guida nazionali per una didattica della Shoah a scuola,” https://www.miur.gov.it/-/linee-guida-nazionali-per-una-didattica-della-shoah-a-scuola (accessed Jul. 5, 2022).

21 See Robert Gordon, “Italy’s Holocaust on Display,” in Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism, pp. 63–74.

22 See McKever, “Displays of Power.”

23 When Levi was arrested with other fourteen Jewish antifascists, an antisemitic journalist exulted that finally the authorities recognized what he had been saying all along: ‘The best of antifascism, past and present, is of the Jewish race.’ [Telesio Interlandi], “‘Lescianà abbà Biruscialaim’ (L’anno prossimo a Gerusalemme). Quest’anno al Tribunale Speciale,” Tevere, Mar. 31, 1934, vol. 1, quoted in Francesco Cassata, (ed.), “La Difesa della razza.” Politica, ideologia e imagine del razzismo fascista (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), p. 50.

24 See Laura Iamurri, “Levi, Paulucci e gli altri,” Marcella Cossu and Carla Michelli, (eds.), Cultura artistica torinese e politiche nazionali, 1920–1940 (Milan: Electa, 2004), pp. 58–9.

25 Francesco Bonami, “Com’era effervescente l’arte sotto la cappa del Regime,” La Stampa, Feb. 18, 2018; Ada Masoero, “Il Ventennio, che bellezza!,” Il Sole24ore, Feb. 17, 2018; Natalia Aspesi, “Quanto era bella l’arte italiana nell’ora più buia,” Repubblica, Mar. 11, 2018.

26 In 1948, Levi’s portraits were mostly in the collections of the sitters. See Carlo L. Ragghianti, Carlo Levi (Florence: Edizioni U, 1948). The work’s inclusion in the 1931 Quadriennale is not certain (see footnote 31). Levi exhibited L’eroe cinese at Galerie Jeune Europe, Paris 1932; ‘Carlo Levi,’ Galerie Bonjean, Paris, 1933; ‘Biennale di Venezia,’ 1954; ‘Quadriennale,’ Rome 1959; ‘Mostra del rinnovamento dell’arte in Italia,’ Casa Romei, Ferrara, 1960; ‘Levi opere dal 1929 al 1935,’ La Nuova Pesa, Rome, 1962; ‘I Sei di Torino,’ Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Turin, 1965; ‘L’arte moderna in Italia,’ Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 1967; and ‘Carlo Levi,’ Palazzo Te, Mantua, 1974. Thanks to Fondazione Carlo Levi’s Antonella Lavorgna for this list.

27 Laura Iamurri linked the painting to the fuoriusciti, but did not discuss the work’s political subtext. Laura Iamurri, “Carlo Levi e Lionello Venturi,” in Cristina Maiocchi, (ed.), Gli Anni di Parigi. Carlo Levi e i fuoriusciti (Turin: Archivio di Stato, 2003), pp. 55–62.

28 Aldo Garosci, Anni di Torino, anni di Parigi (Parma: Berti, 2019), p. 72.

29 See Iamurri, “Carlo Levi e Lionello Venturi,” p. 60.

30 Levi recounted how the fascist police came to arrest him, but waited until he finished a painting.

31 Stanislao Pugliese, “The Eternal Tendency Toward Fascism,” in Franco Baldasso, (ed.), Carlo Levi, Paura della Libertà, Allegoria, vol. 81 (January-June 2020): p. 134. This practice continued in Nazi-occupied Florence, where Levi portrayed fellow partisans. See Daniela Fonti, “Carlo Levi, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti: un ininterrotto sodalizio,” in Paolo Bolpagni, Daniela Fonti, and Antonella Lavorgna, (eds.), Levi e Ragghianti. Un’amicizia fra pittura politica e letteratura (Lucca; Fondazione Ragghianti, 2021), pp. 11–28.

32 Carlo Levi and Leone Ginzburg, “Il concetto di autonomia nel programma di GL” Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà, vol. 4 (September 1932): pp. 6–12. Reproduced in David Bidussa, (ed.), Carlo Levi. Scritti Politici (Turin: Einaudi, 2001).

33 Introduced by Venturi in the 1920s, this reading became such a cliché that André Malraux, upon visiting Levi’s studio in Paris in 1932, allegedly rebutted: ‘I’ve never seen anything as Italian as this.’ Ragghianti, Carlo Levi, p. 23.

34 Psicologia Generale (Rome: Laboratorio Sperimentale di Psicologia, 1935), p. 31.

35 Renato Guttuso, ‘Per Carlo Levi,’ 1967, quoted in Marina Giordano, “Guttuso e Levi,” Kalós, vol. 19, no. 14 (October 2007), pp. 39–45. Although the Quadriennale catalogue does not list L’eroe cinese, it could be Ritratto d’uomo, mentioned by Felice Casorati in a letter dated Dec. 12, 1930 to Levi. See Iamurri, “Levi, Paulucci,” p. 60.

36 Ragghianti, Carlo Levi, pp. 13–14.

37 Levi, “Paura della pittura,” in Ibid., pp. 29–32.

38 Aldo Garosci, “Carlo Levi,” XXVII Biennale (Venice: Alfieri, 1954), pp. 154–7.

39 Carlo Ragghianti, Arte Moderna in Italia, 1915–1935 (Florence: Marchi e Bertoli, 1967), p. 383. See Sibilla Panerai, “Carlo Levi e la cultura artistica durante il fascismo,” in Paolo Bolpagni and Mattia Patti, (eds.), Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti e l’arte in Italia tra le due guerre (Lucca: Fondazione Ragghianti, 2020), pp.197–205.

40 For a detailed, comparative analysis of the two shows (Ragghianti 1967 and Celant 2018), see Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism. See especially the essays authored respectively by Luca Quattrocchi, Denis Viva, and Raffaele Bedarida and Sharon Hecker.

41 Celant, “Toward a Real and Contextual History,” p. 43.

42 Carlo Levi. Mostra Antologica (Milan: Electa, 1974), p. 53.

43 Teresa Gullace’s murder also inspired a scene in Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945).

44 See Adolfo Mignemi and Gabriella Solaro, (eds.), Un’immagine dell’Italia. Resistenza e ricostruzione (Milan: Skira, 2005). The book documents the 1945–1946 shows: ‘Mostra della Liberazione, Mostra artistica documentaria partigiana’; ‘Mostra della ricostruzione’; ‘Mostra del risorgimento ossolano’; ‘Mostra del partigiano italiano’; ‘Mostra della Resistenza Piemontese; Exposition de la resistance italienne’; ‘Mostra dell’esercito’; ‘Mostra di Bordeaux’; ‘Mostra della resistenza’ in Piemonte. It also discusses how, in 1947–1949, the ‘Mostra’ traveled to Zurich, Basel, Bern, Lucerne, Lugano, Milan, Prague, Rome, Naples, Turin, Novara, and Pisa. ‘Arte contro la barbarie’ is not discussed here.

45 Adolfo Mignemi, “Ritratto della nuova Italia,” in ibid., pp. 15–26.

46 The show included portraits of Antonio Gramsci, founder of L’Unità, murdered in jail as an antifascist (depicted by Umberto Clementi), and Giorgio Labò, an architecture student who had joined the Resistance and was murdered in Rome in 1944 (represented respectively by Guttuso, Nino Franchina, and Amleto De Santis).

47 Later published as ‘Gott mit uns,’ they had individual titles in ‘Arte contro la barbarie.’

48 The show included: Umberto Clementi, Mafai, Guttuso, Domenico Purificato, Mirko Basaldella, Marino Mazzacurati, Cagli, Giovanni Omiccioli, Leoncillo, Ugo Rambaldi, Nino Franchina, Alvetti, Vittoriano Carelli, Manlio D’Ercoli, Amleto DeSantis, Trevisan, Arrigo Equini, Aldo Natali, Arnoldo Ciarrocchi, Antonio DeMata, and Turcato.

49 See Gabriele Mucchi, Le occasioni perdute. Memorie 1899–1993 (Milan: Mazzotta, 2001), p. 205.

50 The organizers of ‘Mostra della Liberazione’ asked for ‘the collaboration of … all the participants of “Arte contro la barbarie.”’ Treccani to Guttuso, Jun. 7, 1945, reproduced in Chiara Perin, “‘La vera mostra del fascismo’. 'Arte contro la barbarie' a Roma nel 1944,” Ricerche di s/confine, vol. 4 (2018): p. 275. Ultimately, the Milanese edition included: Giuseppe Aimone, Renato Birolli, Bruno Cassinari, Guttuso, Giuseppe Migneco, Ennio Morlotti, Mucchi, Omiccioli, Sassu, Fiorenzo Tomea, and Treccani. Genoa included: Migneco, Mucchi, gio Ponti, Purificato, Tomea, and Zocchi. See Gabriella Solaro, “Le mostre fotografiche della resistenza,” in Mignemi and Solaro, Un’immagine dell’Italia, pp. 28–9.

51 See Perin, “La vera mostra,” pp. 262–79.

52 Ward, Antifascisms, p. 68.

53 See Levi’s publications: Paura della libertà (written in 1939, published in 1946); Paura della pittura,; and Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Turin: Einaudi, 1945). On Partito d’Azione’s failure, see his L’Orologio (Turin: Einaudi, 1950).

54 Palmiro Togliatti, Jul. 9, 1944. Perin, “La vera mostra,” p. 262.

55 Velio Spano, “L’Arte contro la barbarie,” flyer (Rome, 1944), Archivio Quadriennale, Rome.

56 Idem.

57 ‘Arte e Resistenza in Europa’ (Bologna 1965), ‘Mostra Nazionale “Omaggio alla Resistenza”’ (Florence, 1974), ‘Mostra della Resistenza’ (Milan, 1975), ‘Arte della libertà’ (Genoa, 1995), ‘Resistenza e ricostruzione’ (Milan, 2005).

58 See Vanessa Rocco in Hecker and Bedarida, Curating Fascism.

59 See Robert Gordon, The Holocaust in Italian Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), pp. 44–6.

60 See Raffaele Bedarida, Corrado Cagli (Rome: Donzelli, 2018), pp. 160–84.

61 Antonello Trombadori, Corrado Cagli (Rome: Palma, 1947), p. 12.

62 In Italian literature, the conflation of Holocaust and Resistance started in the war’s aftermath with Primo Levi. See Gordon, The Holocaust.

63 Ibid, p. 42.

64 See Laura Iamurri, “L’arte italiana e la Shoah,” in Marcello Flores, Storia della Shoah in Italia (Turin: UTET, 2010), pp. 447–79. This seminal article, which historicizes for the first time Italian artists’ representation of the Holocaust, mistakenly discusses Cagli’s ‘Trenta Disegni’ as an exhibition. Cagli, however, could publish, not exhibit, his drawings. See Bedarida, Corrado Cagli.

65 Stylistically, iconographically, and chronologically, the painting can be situated between Tre nudi (1938) and Fucilazione (1944), reproduced in Bolpagni, Levi e Ragghianti, p. 105, 108.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raffaele Bedarida

Raffaele Bedarida is an art historian and curator specializing in transnational modernism and politics. His research has focused on cultural diplomacy, migration, and exchange between Italy and the United States. He has also worked on exhibition history, censorship, and propaganda under fascism and during the Cold War. An associate professor at Cooper Union, he holds a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center as well as a BA and MA from the University of Siena. His academic articles and essays have been published extensively in periodicals, such as the Oxford Art Journal, the International Yearbook of Futurism Studies, and Artforum. Bedarida’s most recent books are the monograph Exhibiting Italian Art in the US from Futurism to Arte Povera (Routledge, 2022) and the edited volume Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today, co-edited with Sharon Hecker (Bloomsbury, 2022). He is currently curating an exhibition on Italian artist Corrado Cagli to be held at the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) in New York in the fall of 2023. On that occasion, an English translation of his 2018 monograph on the artist will be published by the Centro Primo Levi Editions.