Civico Museo d’Arte Contemporanea of Milan
Initiator: Marina Pugliese
In 2004 in Italy, Marina Pugliese, curator of the Cimac (Civico Museo d’Arte Contemporanea/Museo del Novecento) of Milan, started a project on collecting information about artists’ materials and techniques in collaboration with University Statale of Milan and the Istituto Centrale del Restauro, Rome. For their final thesis, students in art history get the assignment to collect information from artists who are represented in the collections of Civico Museo d'Arte Contemporanea of Milan. Students have to study the artist and his/her cultural environment, as well as materials and techniques used. Moreover, they have to check the condition of artworks in the museum’s collection together with Marina Pugliese and Andrea Carini, conservator of Brera, who studied at the ICR and is specialised in contemporary art conservation. Finally, the students are prepared to interview the artist.
The thesis is supervised by Marina Pugliese and Bianca Tosatti, professor of History of Techniques at University of Milan, for the technical part; by Giorgio Zanchetti, professor of History of Contemporary Art, for the historical part.
Recently, as any of these works was taking a very long time, the university began to give assignments for shorter theses with less research on the art historical background. Until today 8 long thesis have been written (on artists Emilio Vedova, Carla Accardi, Piero Dorazio, Giuseppe Spagnulo, Enrico Castellani, Luigi Mainolfi, Giuseppe Ajmone, Arturo Carmassi), and 4 shorter ones (Stefano Arienti, Giuseppe Marotta, Concetto Pozzati, Giuseppe Gabellone).
Marina Pugliese concentrated on artists’ interviews in her research on contemporary art conservation carried out as post graduate specialisation in art history with a grant of Accademia dei Lincei in Roma (1997-1999). For her research (published in 2000, Italy) she interviewed Enrico Baj, Claudio Parmiggiani, Anne Marie Sauzeau Boetti (widow of Alighiero Boetti), Paolo Gallerani, Mimmo Rotella, Mauro Staccioli, Davide Boriani, Franco Mazzucchelli, Franco Uncini and Agostino Bonalumi.
Contact marina.pugliese@comune.milano.it
Publications
- Marina Pugliese, ‘Le tecniche e i materiali nell’ arte contemporanea’, 2000, Accademia Naz, dei Lincei, Rome, 169 pages
- Marina Pugliese, "Tecnica mista. Materiali e procedimenti nell'arte del XX secolo", Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2006.
For information (in Italian) http://www.brunomondadori.com/scheda_opera.php?ID=2078