As the 2019-2020 Scholar-in-Residence at Magazzino Italian Art Foundation and the first American to hold this position, Tenley Bick advanced the museum’s commitment to enhancing the appreciation of Italian postwar and contemporary art and created new opportunities for scholarly research and critical assessment. An art historian and an Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Art at Florida State University, Bick brought expertise in postwar and contemporary Italian art, the history of Italian colonialism, and cultural geopolitics of the postwar period. During her residency as the museum’s annual Scholar-in-Residence, Bick contributed to the museum’s educational and public programming by leading special exhibition and museum tours, organizing and participating in the institution’s annual lecture series, and curating a film series dedicated to Italian experimental cinema with Magazzino Director Vittorio Calabrese. She also continued work on her book, Where There's Everything: Michelangelo Pistoletto and World-Building in Arte Povera, and other research projects focused on postcoloniality, interventionist practices, and the legacy of countercultural aesthetics in contemporary Italian art. Where There's Everything: Michelangelo Pistoletto and World-Building in Arte Povera examines the work of the contemporary Italian artist within the politicized cultural contexts of post-WWII Italy and Europe, and against the broader geopolitical horizon for art of the 1960s. Her research also includes a second book-length project on contemporary art and the history of Italian colonialism.
“As an art historian of postwar Italian art and global contemporary art, I have sought to explore in particular how the study of postwar and contemporary Italian art makes us think differently about art history more broadly. I share Magazzino’s dedication to fostering scholarship in this area of study outside of Italy—especially in the United States—and look forward to conducting my research in the presence of works of art that can teach us so much,” said Bick.
About Dr. Tenley Bick
Dr. Tenley Bick is an art historian of global postwar and contemporary art, with a focus in postwar and contemporary Italian art, contemporary African art, and cultural geopolitics of the postwar period. Her writings have been published in a range of scholarly journals, including Third Text, African Arts, and in the volume Theorizing Visual Studies: Writing Through the Discipline (eds. Elkins and McGuire, et al). Her translation work, of an interview of Germano Celant, has also been published in the catalogue for the internationally traveling exhibition, Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 (eds. Kwon and Kaiser). Her scholarship and professional activities have been supported by the University of California, Los Angeles, Florida State University, the Institute of International Education (IIE), the Italian Art Society, and the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome.
Bick is an Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History at Florida State University. Prior to joining the faculty at FSU, she was Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at Washington College. She holds an MA and PhD in Art History from UCLA, and a BA with Honors in Art History from Stanford University.