Enrico Crispolti


Enrico Crispolti was an Italian art critic, curator and art historian. From 1984 to 2005, he was professor of history of contemporary art at the Università degli Studi di Siena, and director of the school of specialisation in art history. He previously taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and at the Università degli Studi di Salerno. He was author of the catalogues raisonnés of the works of Enrico Baj, Lucio Fontana and Renato Guttuso. He died in Rome on 8 December 2018.

Exhibitions

Crispolti curated many contemporary art exhibitions and events, including four editions of Alternative Attuali in L'Aquila, three editions of the Biennale of Metal and Ceramics in Gubbio, the 5th and 6th Biennial of Sacred Art in San Gabriele, the 9th International Sculpture Biennale of Carrara, as well as sections of the Venice Biennale, including Ambiente come sociale, The New Soviet Art: An Unofficial Perspective, and Megastructural Imagination from Futurism to Today, Boccaccio’s Decameron on 100 Etching Interpretations by Petru Rusu.
Other exhibitions he organized include Six Italian Painters from the 1940s to the Present Day,''The imaginary Organic,, A! Que bien!, Resistes ; Art and State and Art in the early 20th Century in Maremma.
Crispolti's work focused mostly on Futurism. He curated the first major retrospective of Giacomo Balla at the Civic Gallery of Modern Art in Turin in 1963, with Maria Drudi Gambillo, as well as major surveys like Futurism and Fashion ; Italiens Moderne: Futurismus und Rationalismus, Futurism, Futuristickà rekonstrukce vesmíru, Futurism and the South of Italy, The Great Themes of Futurism 1909–1944, Le Futurisme ; Futurism through Tuscany ; Futurism ; and From Futurism to Abstraction''.
He also curated several retrospectives of contemporary artists, including Mauro Reggiani ; Corrado Cagli ; Renato Guttuso ; Pietro Cascella ; Edgardo Mannucci ; Enrico Prampolini ; Valeriano Trubbiani ; Francesco Somaini ; Lucio Fontana ; Guido Pajetta ; and Mario Ceroli.

Selected publications

  • , Carriera "barocca" di Fontana. Taccuino critico 1959–2004 e Carteggio 1958–1967, Amedeo Porro Arte Contemporanea e Skira, Milan, 2004Mario Ceroli, , Motta, Milan, 2003Fathi Hassan, Edizioni Della Rovere, Rome, 2002Immaginazione Aurea, Mole Antonelliana, Ancona, 2001Kuetani, Kosanji, Temple Museum, Hiroshima, 2000)L'oggetto Morandi, Cadmio, Florence, 1998Come studiare l'arte contemporanea, Donzelli, Rome, 1997Relazione conclusiva del Rapporto sul Sistema dell’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Toscana, Regione Toscana, Florence, 1996
  • , La pittura in Italia: Il Novecento 3. Le ultime ricerche, Electa, Milan, 1994L'arte del disegno del Novecento italiano Laterza, Rome, 1990Confronto Indiscreto, Accademia d’Egitto, Rome, 1988Alternative Attuali, L'Aquila 1987Storia e critica del Futurismo, Laterza, Rome, 1986Il Futurismo e la moda. Balla e gli altri, Marsilio, Venice, 1986I Basaldella: Dino, Mirko, Afro, Casamassima, Udine, 1984)Renato Guttuso, Giorgio Mondadori, Milan, 1983Extra Media. Esperienze attuali di comunicazione estetica, Foto 32, Studio Forma, Turino, 1978Arti visive e partecipazione sociale, De Donato, Bari, 1977Peter Phillips, Idea, Milan, 1977Erotismo nell'arte astratta Celebes, Trapani, 1976Sociologia e iconologia del Pop Art, Fiorentino, Naples, 1975 Lucio Fontana, La Connaissance, Brussels, 1974Enrico Baj, Bolaffi, Turin, 1973Francesco Somaini: Urgenza nella città, Mazzotta, Milan, 1972L'Informale. Storia e poetica, Carucci, Assisi-Rome, 1971Surrealismo, 1969Il mito della macchina e altri temi del Futurismo, Celebes editore, Trapani, 1969Ricerche dopo l'Informale, Officina, Rome, 1968Il Secondo Futurismo: 5 pittori + 1 scultore, Pozzo, Turin, 1962