Images of Class

A tremendous achievement: through critically exploring what it terms visual practices and communicative strategies , Images of Class uncovers crucial, hitherto ignored dimensions of the workerist adventure. -- Steve Wright, author of <i>Storming Heaven Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism</i> The 1970s in Italy were a decade of social conflicts and intense cultural and aesthetic innovation, but only now, thanks to the Galimberti's book we can have a glimpse of the visual dimension of the movement of Autonomia and of the cultural field that is generally known as operaismo . -- Franco Bifo Berardi Masterful in sweep and molecular in detail, Jacopo Galimberti's volume draws upon thorough archival work and a nuanced understanding of Italy's post-war extraparliamentary left. As the book's incisive case studies reveal, the period's proliferating images of class were matched by an assault upon established classes of imagery. The defiance of capitalist wage relations found an equivalent not merely in the iconography of social contestation, but new formats and forums, new means of circulation and dissemination, from architectural interventions to graphic novels to ephemera which refused institutionalization. Galimberti shows us a time and place when the collective class vernacular of operaismo and autonomia had not yet ceded to something else. We can still rail against that something else, in Italy and elsewhere: urban gentrification, critical grandstanding, a bloated art market, the aesthetic apotheosis of the individual. But this book helps us remember what came first and what might, one day, come again. -- Ara H Merjian, New York University An invaluable, critical work that provides a wealth of information. -- Angela Dimitrakaki, University of Edinburgh Praise for Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969): The transnational approach proposed by the author is something to celebrate. -- Paula Barreiro Lopez, University of Grenoble Praise for Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969): Galimberti's approach is not to give a comprehensive account of any particular formation but, rather, to pay more attention to the networks between them and the circulation of ideas that underpinned and motivated their practices. -- Stevphen Shukaitis * Art History * Praise for Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969): Galimberti mobilizes an immense amount of original archival research and interviews in multiple languages to elaborate the varied and divergent ways that artists, intellectuals, and activists conceived of these ideological options and imagined alternatives. -- Lindsay Caplan * ARTMargins * Praise for Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969): Individuals against Individualism does a great job in registering such movements, something that tends to be obliterated in favor of artwork or project-based examinations. More than that, the book goes a step further in tracking the hesitations and discussions leading to the production of artworks, therefore placing emphasis on the diversity of voices and points of views existing within each collective experience. This aspect constitutes one of the most important accomplishments of the book. -- Carlos Garrido Castellano * Field * Praise for Individuals against Individualism. Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969): Although Individuals against Individualism is a text dense with detail, what is most striking about Galimberti's monograph is its contemporary relevance. In an era of reemergent Cold War tensions and renewed debate regarding the political role of art in movements for equality and justice, Galimberti's exposition of the collective art scene and third way discussions of 1960s Western Europe provides invaluable insights. Indeed, these insights show just how important further works on Cold War art histories outside the lens of a London/New York axis are. -- Hanna Morris * Visual Studies *