“Roma = Parigi”. The 1968 Movement and the Art Institutions in France and Italy: a Comparative Perspective

Elisa Bassetto

Ugo Mulas, Protestor march during the 34th Venice Biennale, 1968. © Eredi Mulas — Ugo Mulas, *Protestor march during the 34th Venice Biennale*, 1968. © Eredi Mulas

Ugo Mulas, *Protestor march during the 34th Venice Biennale*, 1968. © Eredi Mulas

Employing an interdisciplinary approach that combines art history, cultural history, and comparative history, this project aims to analyze the impact of the 1968 movement on Italian and French art institutions. The objective is to demonstrate the strong link between some of the outcomes of the “joli Mai” and the events that took place in Italy in 1968, which involved major Italian art exhibitions such as the Biennale di Venezia and the Triennale di Milano. The research also aims to tease out some common traits and differences between the position taken by the student movement and the ideas expressed by some of the greatest protagonists of art history and criticism after the Second World War, such as Giulio Carlo Argan, Pierre Restany, Alain Jouffroy, Jean Dubuffet, Pino Pascali, Carla Lonzi, and Lea Vergine. In doing so, it devotes particular attention to the experience of the Parisian Atelier Populaire Ex-École des Beaux-Arts.