Dr. Roberta Minnucci joined Magazzino Italian Art as the fifth Scholar-in-Residence in the museum's history. In her role she conducted extensive research on the reception of Arte Povera in the United States and contributed to Magazzino’s research and public program with the organization of the 2023 Lecture Series Arte Povera: Artistic Tradition and Transatlantic Dialogue and the 2023 Cinema in Piazza Film Program Rome: A Visual Journey. In addition, she conducted in-depth research on the works of Magazzino’s permanent collection and wrote a significant number of critical texts for the museum pamphlet. She regularly gave guided tours both of the museum’s collection and temporary exhibitions (Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura and Pistoletto’s Welcome to New York!) for students and special guests.
She worked on her postdoctoral research project focusing on the reception of Arte Povera in the United States and the artistic dialogue between Italy and the United States. In addition to accessing relevant bibliography at Magazzino’s Germano Celant Research Center and in libraries in New York (Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, MoMA Library), she conducted extensive research in archives in New York including the MoMA Archives, Columbia University Archives and the Archives of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Dr. Minnucci conducted additional research in the Archives of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis on Pistoletto’s first solo show in the United States (Michelangelo Pistoletto: A Reflected World, 1966) and Mario Merz’s solo show held in 1972. While there, she had the opportunity to visit the retrospective Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts. Dr. Minnucci wrote a review of the exhibition for the academic publication Art Journal that will be published in Fall 2023.
While at Magazzino, she received two additional prestigious research scholarships for advancing her research project: a Getty Library Research Grant from the Getty Foundation that allowed her to spend a few weeks conducting research in the Archives of the Getty Research Center in Los Angeles, and a Research Grant from the Ragusa Foundation for the Humanities in New York. In addition, Dr. Minnucci delivered talks for a wider audience both in Italian and English about her professional path and research role at Magazzino.
At the United Nations Headquarters in New York, she delivered a talk about her professional experience entitled “Professional and Research Paths in Contemporary Art” for The Arts for Global Citizenship, GCMUNTalks, Global Citizens Model United Nations. She was an invited speaker at the MABART – Artistic Residences for Italian Students organized by the Ministero dell’Istruzione (Italian Ministry of Education) in New York, where she presented the talk entitled “Promoting Italian Art in the United States: The Research Program at Magazzino Italian Art” and at the Social Innovation Campus organized Valore Italia in Milan, in the Panel The Contribution of Art and Design in support of Social Innovation, where she presented the online talk entitled “Promoting Participation through Research and Public Programs at Magazzino Italian Art”.
As part of Magazzino’s Public Program, Dr. Minnucci chaired the online talk Artists' Writings: The Case of Salvo and Barbara T. Smith, a conversation between Lisa Andreani, curator, archivist, and member of the Scientific Committee at Archivio Salvo, and Pietro Rigolo, Associate Curator at the Getty Research Institute and co-editor of The Way to Be, a newly published memoir by the artist Barbara T. Smith.
About Roberta Minnucci
Dr. Roberta Minnucci is an art historian and curator specialising in postwar Italian art. She has obtained her PhD from the University of Nottingham (U.K.) with a thesis which examined Arte Povera’s engagement with cultural memory. In 2021, she has been a Rome Award holder at the British School at Rome and the recipient of the first edition of the “Researching and Rewriting Contemporary Art History” Scholarship promoted by the Fondazione Baruchello in collaboration with the Centre of Research for Italian Abstract Art, Università La Sapienza and Università Cattolica di Milano. Her articles and essays have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals and exhibition catalogues. She has gained curatorial and research experience at different institutions including: Tate Modern, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, Christie’s, Southampton City Art Gallery, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and Museo Fondazione Pino Pascali.