Juliane Debeusscher

The attempt to repopulate the village of Palazzo d'Arcevia in the Marche region of Italy was initiated in the early 1970s by an Italian entrepreneur, assisted by architect and artist Ico Parisi. Parisi promptly turned the project into a utopian proposal for an existential community, involving thirty-three cultural operators and intellectuals including the art historians and critics Enrico Crispolti and Pierre Restany. Through archival and bibliographical research, this article contextualises Operazione Arcevia in the participatory moment that marked civic and cultural life in 1970s Italy, against the backdrop of movements of social and political contestation and cultural decentralisation. A rich corpus of critical writings, sketches of artistic interventions into public space and visual and written archival materials document the collective process and will here reconstruct the trajectory of this unrealised attempt. While outlining the singularity of Operazione Arcevia-in particular, the financing from the private entrepreneur, the unique convergence of artists with distinct trajectories and proposals and the participant's elaborate communication and dissemination strategy-this study will also highlight the shared objectives and concerns of the proposal with other practices rooted in social and territorial action. Beyond Parisi, figures like Crispolti and Francesco Somaini with previous experience in similar projects operated as connecting agents between this project and others at the same time in Italy. The operation raised issues concerning architectural and artistic intervention and the risk of "cultural colonisation", the relationship between avantgarde art and local artisanal and agricultural traditions and the relationship with local and national political representatives. This article examines the artistic proposals for Palazzo d'Arcevia and Parisi's photographs of the process, which reflect the desire for self-representation and the valorisation of the work, but also reveal the gender imbalance and the lack of contact with the indigenous population. While underlining the contradictions and difficulties that eventually led to the project's abandonment, this study highlights the exceptional confluence of cultural operators and their desire for social transformation at a complex time in Italian history.

Este capítulo contempla la Bienal de Venecia del 1977 como una caja de resonancia de los debates que animaban parte de la sociedad europea de los años 1970s en cuanto a su relación – real o imaginada - con los países del bloque soviético. Se centra en una puesta en relación particular: la del arte non oficial de esta región con una posición de disidencia política. Partiendo de un análisis de los discursos y representaciones generados a raíz de, o en torno a la Bienal del Disenso, pretende reflexionar sobre la asociación, a menudo forzada, entre una producción estética desarrollada en un contexto tan específico como los regímenes de tipo soviético, y una postura de oposición política visibilizada en detrimento de otros aspectos. Mostrada, criticada y/o legitimada tanto mediante debates intelectuales como propuestas expositivas, esta ecuación ha generado proyecciones cuya influencia ha perdurado mas allá del cierre de la Bienal.

This chapter contemplates the 1977 Venice Biennale as a sounding board for the debates that agitated part of the European society in the 1970s regarding its relationship - real or imagined - with the countries of the Soviet bloc. It focuses on a particular relationship: that of the unofficial art of this region with a position of political dissent. Starting from an analysis of the discourses and representations generated by or around the "Biennale del Dissenso" (Biennial of Dissent), it seeks to reflect on the often forced association between an aesthetic production developed in a context as specific as Soviet-type regimes, and a position of visible political opposition to the detriment of other aspects. Shown, criticised and/or legitimised both through intellectual debates and exhibition proposals, this equation has generated projections whose influence has lasted beyond the closure of the Biennial.

This article addresses the trajectory of Czech action artist Petr Štembera in the 1970s, focusing on the circulation of his work beyond the Iron Curtain through photographic documentation. Examining most particularly a planned, joint participation at the 10 th Paris Biennial in 1977 together with Jan Mlčoch, and Štembera's correspondence with French art critic François Pluchart, present essay discusses interpretations of the artist's work that traveled to, and through Western Europe. The author argues that the distribution of photographs and texts completed and extended the artist's range of action and reception, providing, on the one hand, a mediated experience of Štembera's performances and actions for those who couldn't physically attend them and, on the other hand, for the artist representing a channel of communication and exchange about his work.

This book chapter addresses the role that information and transnational solidarity played in the visibility and public acknowledgment of Hungarian alternative culture. It examines the censored exhibitions Hungary Can Be Yours (1984) and The Fighting City (1987) through the lens of their media coverage. Both cases exemplify the conditions of marginalization imposed by the Communist authorities, as well as the strategies of public exposure and denunciation implemented by Hungarian artists facing censorship. This shift toward greater visibility, Debeusscher argues, ran parallel to the growth of political and civil oppositional movements in Central Europe. The chapter’s last section discusses the inclusion of both exhibitions in historical and artistic narratives after the political and economic changes of 1989–91 in the Eastern bloc.

“Dialogues engagés au travers du Rideau de fer: Raoul-Jean Moulin et Jindřich Chalupecký”, in Kramer-Mallordy, Antje (dir.), 1968 : la critique d’art, la politique et le pouvoir, online publication of the research seminar of the PRISME program (September 2017-April 2018), Archives de la critique d’art, Université Rennes 2.

This conversation with Júlia Klaniczay took place at the Artpool Archive in Budapest, in January 2011. It focuses on the exhibition Hungary Can Be Yours!/International Hungary (Magyarország a tiéd lehet!/ Nemzetközi Magyarország), organized in January 1984 by György Galántai at the Young Artists’ Club in Budapest.