Curzio Malaparte & the Visual Arts

Co-organized with
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
CIMA – Center for Italian Modern Art

In collaboration with
Bard College

International Conference
Curzio Malaparte & the Visual Arts

Italian author Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) has been celebrated and ostracized worldwide for his controversial politics and for the impressive success of novels such as Kaputt (1944) and The Skin (1949). In his writings, Malaparte witnesses the fall of Europe during WWII by illuminating the racialized, gendered and biopolitical aspects of modern political power, even beyond fascism. At the same time, his name is indelibly associated with Casa Malaparte (1938-40, revised until 1950), the outstanding modernist mansion perched atop a solitary rock in Capri, which the author himself designed in collaboration with rationalist architect Adalberto Libera. A fabled subject and setting for countless photographers and filmmakers, Casa Malaparte has become a paradigm of luxurious minimalism and an international icon of Italian style, famously portrayed in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Contempt.

Malaparte’s unique interpretation of arts, architecture, and landscape in his visionary writing and beyond—from Casa Malaparte, to the piercing photographs he shot as a war correspondent in Ethiopia, the Balkans and Ukraine, to his anti-picturesque film The Forbidden Christ (1951)—are at the center of “Curzio Malaparte and the Visual Arts.”

PROGRAM
DAY 2 (Afternoon)
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò (24 W 12th St.)

5:00 PM – Welcome Remarks by Casa Italiana Director Stefano Albertini
PANEL 3: The Archivio Malaparte at Biblioteca di Via Senato in Milan:
Sources for the Study of Malaparte’s Cinema and Visual Culture
Chair: Franco Baldasso

Carla Maria Giacobbe (Biblioteca di Via Senato, Milan)
Malaparte and Cinema: Drafts and Projects from the Author’s Archive
Federico Oneta (Biblioteca di Via Senato, Milan)
Archivio Malaparte: A “Visual” Panorama

6:00 PM – Introduction to Curzio Malaparte’s The Forbidden Christ (Il Cristo proibito, 1951)
Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard University)

6:30 PM – Screening of The Forbidden Christ

In ENGLISH

Concept
FRANCO BALDASSO, Bard College, New York

Advisory Committee
STEFANO ALBERTINI, Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò – NYU
FRANCO BALDASSO, Bard College, New York
MARIA PIA DE PAULIS, Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III
FABIO FINOTTI, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, New York
NICOLA LUCCHI, Center for Italian Modern Art, New York