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Images of Class: Operaismo, Autonomia and the Visual Arts
The first overview of the unique encounter between artists and the prominent Marxist current Workerism, also known as Operaismo
During the 1960s and 1970s, Workerism and Autonomia were prominent Marxist currents. However, it is rarely acknowledged that these movements inspired many visual artists such as the members of Archizoom, Gordon Matta-Clark and Gianfranco Baruchello.
This book focuses on the aesthetic and cultural discourse developed by three generations of militants (including Mario Tronti, Antonio Negri, Bifo and Silvia Federici), and how it was appropriated by artists, architects, graphic designers and architectural historians such as Manfredo Tafuri. Images of Classsignposts key moments of this dialogue, ranging from the drawings published on classe operaia to Potere Operaio’s exhibition in Paris, the Metropolitan Indians’ zines, a feminist art collective who adhered to the Wages for Housework Campaign, and the N group’s experiments with Gestalt theory.
Featuring more than 140 images of artworks, many published here for the first time, this volume provides an original perspective on post-war Italian culture and new insights into some of the most influential Marxist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries worldwide.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Workerism and Autonomia were prominent Marxist currents. However, it is rarely acknowledged that these movements inspired many visual artists such as the members of Archizoom, Gordon Matta-Clark and Gianfranco Baruchello.
This book focuses on the aesthetic and cultural discourse developed by three generations of militants (including Mario Tronti, Antonio Negri, Bifo and Silvia Federici), and how it was appropriated by artists, architects, graphic designers and architectural historians such as Manfredo Tafuri. Images of Classsignposts key moments of this dialogue, ranging from the drawings published on classe operaia to Potere Operaio’s exhibition in Paris, the Metropolitan Indians’ zines, a feminist art collective who adhered to the Wages for Housework Campaign, and the N group’s experiments with Gestalt theory.
Featuring more than 140 images of artworks, many published here for the first time, this volume provides an original perspective on post-war Italian culture and new insights into some of the most influential Marxist movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries worldwide.
448 pages, Paperback
Published September 6, 2022
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September 20, 2023
This is an excellent book, which deserves to have garnered a lot more attention than it has - I guess names like Negri, Virno, Bifo et al are not names to conjure with as much as they were in the 2000s. Galimberti observes the omerta that seems to apply to all books on Operaismo/Autonomia, where any serious analysis of the organisational effectiveness, analytic accuracy or political importance of what these interesting sects got up to between the mid-60s and the late 70s is considered tantamount to scabbing (most likely because an honest assessment here would be mainly very negative). But that means the book's focus - the art, architecture and design of Operaismo/Autonomia - lends itself much better to an extended treatment than a book on their politics might. There are very sharp and insightful analyses here of some familiar names - Archizoom, Balestrini, Tafuri, Cacciari, Federici - and a host of works and projects by lesser-known militants and sympathisers, ranging from social housing schemes to cartoons.
In all of these there are strikingly imaginative responses to real and perceived changes in working conditions, working class action and capitalist change, most of them very open-ended and still fresh. Galimberti only glancingly follows the protagonists into what happened after the state trials of Autonomia (roughly, Tafuri into influential, architect-flattering miserablist quietism, Cacciari and Tronti into PCI centre-leftism, Negri and Bifo into theoretical faddism) but - I think inadvertently - the book provides a very useful way to think of Operaismo/Autonomia. That is, not as a coherent political movement, where it can only really be found wanting, but as an artistic/theoretical avant-garde, where it can be seen as one of the most creative, politically imaginative and diverse movements of its kind in history.
In all of these there are strikingly imaginative responses to real and perceived changes in working conditions, working class action and capitalist change, most of them very open-ended and still fresh. Galimberti only glancingly follows the protagonists into what happened after the state trials of Autonomia (roughly, Tafuri into influential, architect-flattering miserablist quietism, Cacciari and Tronti into PCI centre-leftism, Negri and Bifo into theoretical faddism) but - I think inadvertently - the book provides a very useful way to think of Operaismo/Autonomia. That is, not as a coherent political movement, where it can only really be found wanting, but as an artistic/theoretical avant-garde, where it can be seen as one of the most creative, politically imaginative and diverse movements of its kind in history.
Displaying 1 of 1 review