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Can Machines Make Art? The giant leaps of generative artificial intelligence confront us with a dilemma. If in the mid-twentieth century a brilliant scientist, Alan Turing, could imagine a machine capable of thinking like a human being, today ChatGPT and other programs do much more: they write texts, compose music, and create images that are now difficult to distinguish from the products of flesh-and-blood artists. Can systems like DALL-E, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion truly replace humans in one of their most emblematic and elusive activities? Can art exist without an artist?To answer these questions—and many other queries on a topic of great relevance—Luigi Bonfante guides us through the discovery of the machina artifex: its mechanisms, potential, contradictions, and the theories shaping its evolution and its forays into the artistic realm. Starting from a concept of art as a process that necessarily involves human beings, the author takes a close look at AI creativity, highlighting affinities and divergences between the human and the non-human, as well as the possible dialogue between these two dimensions. Particular attention is given to those who, like Pierre Huyghe, have embraced the challenges of this new medium to outline a new "posthuman" aesthetic.Arte senza artista is a reflection spanning history, technology, and philosophy—an essay in which art, observed through the prism of artificial intelligence, still emerges in all its complex humanity. Getting to know the machine better thus becomes a way to understand our own expressiveness, and therefore ourselves.

A large Etruscan-period terracotta jar, 14,838 bronze objects, including finished items and tools (axes, fibulae, knives, sickles, razors) as well as unfinished objects, production waste and raw ingots of copper and other metals.This hoard of foundry materials, discovered in 1878 near the Basilica of San Francesco in Bologna, is an exceptional testament to the city’s metallurgical activity and industrial importance during the Villanovan period, between the late 8th and early 7th centuries BC. The discovery of this ‘storage room’ is attributed to Antonio Zannoni, an eclectic figure in late 19th-century Bologna who coordinated numerous excavations both within and outside the city’s urban fabric and applied himself to documenting archaeological activity with scientific rigour: excavation surveys, cataloguing of finds, maps, photographs and meticulously detailed reports have made his documents invaluable sources. Enriched by a foreword by Laura Bentini and extracts from the excavation notebooks, this volume republishes and recontextualises the text and the 56 photographic plates with which Zannoni meticulously documented the excavation and the finds of the so-called “Bologna Foundry”.

Linda Nochlin explores the theme of the fragment as a metaphor for modernity, tracing a long historical and visual trajectory that begins with Füssli’s emblematic drawing, in which the artist is depicted as a small, terrified figure beside an enormous ancient foot – a symbol of the modern condition as the irreparable loss of a past wholeness.With the French Revolution, the fragment takes on a positive value: the mutilation of bodies and the toppling of royal statues express the destruction of the Ancien Régime and the foundation of a new order. In the nineteenth century, the dismembered body becomes an image of trauma and history, and Géricault mocks it by painting severed heads and limbs, always poised between scientific dissection and romantic melodrama. At the same time, the Impressionists and Manet depicted cities and bodies with fragmented compositions: the fragment entered the very structure of the image. Cézanne and Van Gogh worked with sculptural fragments that evoked tensions between tradition and modernity, eros and sacrifice, art and life, culminating in the extreme act of self-mutilation. In the twentieth century and beyond, from the Surrealists (Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer) to Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe and others, the fragment destabilises the subject’s identity, gender and integrity.For the author, the fragment should be conceived as a constellation of specific cases and differences within a plural and ever-changing modernity, in which the loss of unity and the search for new totalities coexist in tension.

Whilst Pop Art may not be a movement characterised by manifestos and group demonstrations, it is at the very least a relatively cohesive trend, a set of practices that utilise images, objects and the languages of mass culture (advertising, comics, packaging, the star system, design) to showcase, celebrate, critique or play with them. This spirit was driven by a desire to experience the contemporary world with a positive rather than a negative attitude, in a climate of exuberant optimism.In this critical overview of Pop Art, written in real time before the movement was canonised, Lucy R. Lippard dissects the phenomenon – which first emerged in England and then independently in America – and its international legacy. She examines both its iconic figures – the spiritual fathers, the precursors and the five ‘diehards’ – and lesser-known names, as well as the artists who preceded them: the Abstract Expressionists.By capturing the energy, contradictions and social context without the retrospective lens of later textbooks, Lippard offers one of the first systematic analyses of how mass visual culture comes to constitute the very language of contemporary art.

Count Galeotto Corazzi’s collection of Etruscan antiquities has been housed at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden since 1826 and represents the first collection of Etruscan artefacts through which the academic world north of the Alps was able to engage with Etruscan civilisation.A selection of these artefacts is now returning to Italy on an exceptional basis, first to Cortona and now to Milan, in an exhibition that strengthens the bond between the Luigi Rovati Foundation and the MAEC – Museum of the Etruscan Academy.The Galeotto Ridolfini Corazzi collection dates back to the 18th century, when the spread of intellectual freedoms fostered the emergence of an international elite with an interest in archaeology and ancient civilisations, thereby contributing to the circulation of artefacts and works of art. Among the bronzes on display, some statuettes and artefacts are of a votive and cultural nature, such as the Boy with a Goose, depicting a naked child holding a goose in his arms and wearing a bulla around his neck, the inscription on the right leg of which attests to its votive function; a similar purpose is confirmed by the dedicatory inscription on the bronze statuette of Laran, the god of war depicted wearing armour and a helmet, dating from between 540 and 520 BC; The small bronze statue depicting a Griffin, a mythical creature combining the lion, king of the earth, with the eagle, queen of the sky, dates from the mid-4th century BC; it bears a dedicatory inscription on the right side of its body to Tinia, the god of thunderbolts.Alongside the Corazzi bronzes, a selection of volumes is on display, highlighting the documentary value of ancient publications for the study of the history of works of art and the history of taste.

Etruschi e Veneti hanno storicamente condiviso strettissime relazioni commerciali e culturali. Sempre in profonda e prolungata vicinanza, gli Etruschi hanno avuto una forte influenza sulla cultura dei Veneti, che hanno saputo trarre frutto dallo scambio facendo tuttavia un’attenta selezione nell’accogliere materiali, mode, influssi. Tra mondo etrusco e mondo del Veneto antico esistono quindi profondi parallelismi ma anche evidenti differenze.La mostra, organizzata dalla Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia che sarà ospitata nelle sale dell’Appartamento del Doge di Palazzo Ducale per poi proseguire, al termine della tappa veneziana, alla Fondazione Luigi Rovati di Milano, è occasione per riflettere su un elemento fondamentale per entrambe le civiltà, l’acqua, e per presentare alcune novità, sia di scavo che di studio. Il catalogo riunisce ventidue contributi di primari studiosi ed esperti che illustrano il valore sacrale dell’acqua per gli Etruschi e per i Veneti, si addentrano nell’analisi sia dei principali luoghi di culto e santuari che delle più importanti fonti sananti, e approfondiscono gli aspetti votivi e dedicatori così come le criticità legate alla valorizzazione di questi beni archeologici.Testi di Alberta Facchi / Alessandro Asta / Alessandro Conti / Angela Ruta Serafini / Anna Marinetti / Benedetta Prosdocimi / Carla Pirazzini / Chiara Squarcina / Daniele F. Maras / Elisa Biancifiori / Elisabetta Govi / Federica Timossi / Giovanna Gambacurta / Giulio Paolucci / Giuseppe Sassatelli / Heinz-Werner Dämmer / Jacopo Tabolli / Laura M. Michetti / Loredana Capuis / Maddalena Bassani / Margherita Tirelli / Rossella Zaccagnini / Silvia Paltineri / Simona Carosi /Tiziano Trocchi

This volume brings together the principal writings of the sculptor Francesco Somaini (1926–2005), who devoted one of his most fruitful creative periods to the theme of the city. A pioneer of urban art in Italy and Europe, Somaini pursued his artistic exploration by moving beyond previous artistic traditions, influenced above all by American architecture from the 1960s and 1970s onwards, following his solo exhibition in New York and his monumental sculpture projects in Atlanta, Baltimore and Rochester.His experience abroad took place during a crucial period, characterised by a strong social and political commitment to the reality of metropolitan life. His editions of classics in sociology and urban planning are crammed with marginal notes; his theoretical treatises, veritable manifestos, openly criticise modernity and the sterile symbolism of the International Style, with its megastructural utopias and the devastation of the man-made landscape driven by industrialisation. Somaini hopes, not without a certain urgency, that sculpture will finally take the decisive step and become a form of social critique, with the aim of re-sacralising public spaces.He thus conveys his project ideas through statements of artistic intent, lectures and conferences, but also through drawings of great imaginative power and photomontages, his medium of choice for his proposals for urban design interventions. Through a careful selection of unpublished texts, notes and sketches, Fulvio Irace offers a synthesis and contextualisation of the Lombard master’s original career and his contribution to the international debate on the future of cities.

Versatile and tireless, over the course of a career spanning more than sixty years, Gio Ponti (1891–1979) redefined the spirit of Italian design, working across all fields of the applied arts: from residential architecture to interior design, from ceramics to glass, to furniture and beyond. His boundless creativity allowed him to explore and reinterpret the most diverse styles of the 20th century, from the Novecento movement to Rationalism, always in search of beauty in all its forms. As founder and editor of Domus magazine, he absorbed and disseminated international ideas and established the canons of the ‘Italian home’ – a space where all the arts meet and coexist in harmony – helping to export the ‘Made in Italy’ brand. Today, Ponti is celebrated not only for masterpieces such as the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan, Villa Planchard in Caracas and the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento – emblems of modernity – but also for iconic furniture that continues to be reissued and to inspire new generations of designers around the world.

Le Corbusier (1887–1956), born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, devoted his life to designing buildings that have become symbols of the Modern Movement. From the Villa Savoye in Poissy, through the utopian Cité radieuse in Marseille, to the design of the city of Chandigarh in India, his works have made him one of the most important figures in 20th-century architecture. A tireless theorist, when he could not realise his ideas, he expressed them through books, conferences and lectures around the world. The ‘five points of modern architecture’ and the idea of the house as a ‘machine for living’ have left an indelible mark on the discipline. A visionary and, at times, a provocateur, he owed many of his insights to the hours spent painting and drawing, leaving us a rich artistic output which, even today, awaits proper recognition.

Bilingual edition Ita/EngHis repertoire is as changeable as his thinking. Diego Cibelli eagerly absorbs everything he sees, from everyday objects to Renaissance and Neoclassical engravings, Darwinian drawings depicting aquatic microorganisms, plant and animal life, Greek and Etruscan art, fairy tales, comedy and mythological bestiaries. For him, creation is rêverie in action: a tool for direct knowledge of the world, an essential component of reason.A native of Naples, after studying in Campania and Berlin, he set up his studio in Scampia: in the heart of a neighbourhood marked by unfulfilled utopias and the failure of rational urban planning, the idea of beauty as an act of resistance, a breath of fresh air amid the chaos, was born. This is why his art is a guerrilla conducted according to his own rules, which can be understood by looking at the recent and more ancient history of porcelain: the material the artist has chosen for his work.This publication is dedicated to the site specific installation Una vita all’aria aperta (A Life in the Open Air) created for the Fondazione Luigi Rovati Art Museum, where the works occupy three spaces: the building’s entrance hall, with four Etruscan-inspired masks; the entrance hall of the Piano Nobile, with four characters with ancient features moving in a circular dance, suspended in mid-air, while on the wall a pair of birds lean outwards; the large façade overlooking the garden, animated by reliefs of anthropomorphic figures, animals and floral elements.Cibelli prefers the whiteness of biscuit porcelain, obtained by firing kaolin at a very high temperature, which allows him to model marble-like bodies and drapery. He shapes his ideas directly in clay, using a plaster mould to create white, raw forms that must then pass the test of fire. An emblem of both resistance and fragility, in his hands porcelain becomes carnal, ironic and popular. His figures and fragments are metaphors where the form is never quite the same, nor quite different: leaves, branches, faces, legs and hands stretch out, seducing each other in a dance of pleasure, play, surprise and life.

In 1872, a man photographed a horse. It may seem a trivial act, but it marked the beginning of a revolution destined to change our perception of time and space. The man behind it was a figure as ambitious as he was enigmatic: Eadweard Muybridge, a brilliant landscape photographer and tireless experimenter who sought to ‘split the second’ – that is, to open a breach in time to reveal what the eye cannot isolate: movement.Photography, after all, was born and developed in step with a world that lives, travels and communicates at an accelerated pace, an expanding world made smaller by the telegraph and the railway. And it is no coincidence that the man funding those studies on movement was none other than Leland Stanford, owner of Occident – the champion trotter immortalised in Muybridge’s chronophotographs – and magnate of the Central Pacific Railroad. Not just any patron, but the very embodiment of the tensions between capital, private interests and progress that animated late-nineteenth-century America, and in particular California, the land of dreams reaching towards the future.Un fiume di ombre is not merely the story of a life; it is the account of a technological and cultural gamble. The breathtaking landscapes of Yosemite Valley and the views of San Francisco, created by ‘flaying the city’ and flattening it like an animal’s hide, are not mere backdrops; they are stages on a journey leading to the snapshot and – shortly thereafter – to cinema and the media industries. Rebecca Solnit paints a panorama which, like the grand urban vistas for which Muybridge was famous, weaves together different times and perspectives into a single vision, with a gaze that, starting with a horse, traces the gold rush, delves into the fractured world of Native Americans and reaches as far as Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Bilingual edition Ita/EngA journey through the centuries that recounts the deep connection between sport, art and civilisation: “The Olympic Games™. A 3000-Year History” is a major exhibition organised by the Fondazione Luigi Rovati in collaboration with the Olympic Museum and the Musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire in Lausanne. The exhibition is an opportunity to retrace the long history of sport, which began with Greek civilisation, passed through the Etruscan and Roman worlds, and continued to the present day, showing how Olympic values have accompanied the evolution of society. Much more than just a sporting competition, the Games were, from their very origins, a public initiative with marked religious, political and social connotations, which brought with it the proclamation of a sacred truce and the celebration of values such as physical strength, the beauty of movement, the dignity of challenge and intercultural dialogue. Through artefacts and materials of exceptional value, the exhibition illustrates a series of themes divided into sections: athletes and their physical activities, with particular reference to sports equipment; objects that have contributed to Olympic history, primarily the torch; the variety of disciplines and competitions through an iconographic language that adopts standardised and easily recognisable patterns; the moment of victory and the awarding of prizes; the link between sport and memory. The focus is, moreover, the Tomb of the Olympiads from Tarquinia, displayed for the first time outside the Museo Archeologico Nazionale of Tarquinia and reconstructed on the main floor of the Fondazione Luigi Rovati. Discovered in 1958, shortly before the Rome Olympics in 1960, the Tomb features paintings depicting a lively chariot race and various athletics competitions, such as sprinting, long jump, discus throwing and boxing. In each section of the exhibition, alongside the predominant collection of materials relating to the ancient world, there are also some memorabilia relating to the modern Olympics, arranged for visual impact avoiding mechanical or inappropriate analogies.With texts by: Vincenzo Bellelli, Luca Cerchiai, Anne-Cécile Jaccard, Christian Mazet, Lionel Pernet, Patricia Reymond, Maria Cristina Tomassetti, Giuseppe Sassatelli.