Contemporary

Republican Italy

In the difficult post-World War II years, Sardinian culture was characterized by the intensity of civil commitment. The objective of the social and cultural redemption of the island unites artists who work on the front of realism and those who aim to update languages on the basis of the avant-garde.
Despite the fervor of debate that ran through the Fifties and Sixties, however, innovation does not take on radical tones: Sardinia “jumps” the conceptual moment distinct from overcoming barriers between techniques and the encroachment of art into everyday life, to attest to research with an informal and analytical tone.
Furthermore, with the consolidation of an art system dominated by the logic of the international market, Sardinian artists are discounting the absence in the region of galleries and exhibition channels recognized outside.
Between the eighties and nineties, with the emergence of a new artistic movement, for which the relationship with identity has ceased to constitute the dominant concern, the emergence of museum and educational structures for contemporary art and of widespread critical activity is reflected.
In terms of architecture and urban planning, Sardinia is not exempt from the endemic ills of republican Italy. The uncontrolled growth of cities, low-cost construction, the systematic alteration, if not destruction, of traditional contexts are only rarely accompanied by the ability to intelligently design and build the new.

Article

The renewal of languages

What marked the “official” entry into Sardinia of contemporary art was, in 1957, the award ceremony at the 1st Nuoro Biennale, amid heated controversy, of an abstract painting by Mauro Manca. Under the impetus of Manca,...

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