Carmen Belmonte

Carmen Belmonte

Italian Fellow in Modern Studies
September 10, 2018–January 21, 2019
Profession
Postdoctoral Researcher, Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte
Project title
Between Censorship and Preservation: The Afterlife of Fascist-Era Monumental Art in Italy
Project description

In the absence of a shared national narrative of its Fascist past, Italy remains divided by a conflicting collective memory, as manifested in the current resurgence of Fascist ideology. Monuments and works of art realized under the regime still pervade the Italian urban landscape. Such cases of controversial heritage deserve to be critically investigated in their multiple values: aesthetic, historical, and political. This project aims to explore the afterlife of selected works of monumental art from postwar to contemporary Italy, focusing on their relationships with the architectural and urban environment, and investigating the ways these anachronic presences might be negotiated within a democratic state. Carmen Belmonte will analyze the complex dynamics of postwar censorship and the attendant obliteration of Fascist propaganda, as well as the subsequent commitment of art historians instead to study, restore, and preserve these monuments and works of art. The evolving history of their reception and preservation since the fall of the regime casts light both on the peculiarities of the Italian history and management of Fascist-era cultural heritage and, from a comparative perspective, on the broader context of postwar interventions on Europe’s politically charged artistic patrimony.