Friday 21 April, 6pm
The Art of Collecting and the Futurist Avantgarde
A round table about Futurist books, with Dr Günter Berghaus (University of Bristol) and Giacomo Coronelli (Libreria Antiquaria Pontremoli, Milan). Introduction and chair by Valentina Mirabella (British Library).
The book was an extraordinarily powerful object for the Italian Futurists: a medium to convey radical ideas, typography and art. This round table will look at its importance and at the history of collecting Futurist books, in Italy and in the UK. Organised in collaboration with the British Library, the event is dedicated to the late Chris Michaelides, (former Curator of Romance Collections, British Library) and to his contribution to the British Library’s Futurist and Avant-garde collections. With the support of Libreria Antiquaria Pontremoli.
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Günter Berghaus is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol and has been Guest Professor at Brown University, Providence/RI and the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He has directed numerous plays from the classical and modern repertoire and has organised several international conferences. He has published some 30 books on various aspects of theatre history, performance studies and the avant-garde. He is a leading expert on Italian Futurism and edits the International Yearbook of Futurism Studies. Most recently he has co- edited Futurism and the Sacred (with Monica Jansen and Luca Somigli), Berlin/ Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2021; Tullio Crali: Sintesi teatrali futuriste / 13 Futurist Mini-Dramas (with Mario Musella). He has contributed a critical essay to F..T. Marinetti: Necessità e bellezza della violenza. Napoli: Diana Edizioni, 2021.
Giacomo Coronelli (Milan, 1981) studied Classical and Modern Literature at Milan State University, with an emphasis on Bibliography and Publishing History. In 2008, he began his career in the book trade at Libreria Antiquaria Pontremoli, one of the leading rare-book dealers in Italy. From the very beginning, he worked on Italian Futurism, editing three catalogues devoted to Sergio Cereda’s collection of futurist books, periodicals, autographs and ephemera, one of the largest ever to appear on the market. Since then, he has specialised in Futurist rare editions, with a particular emphasis on manifestos, the publishing history of Futurist books and periodicals, and the printed works of Futurist artists such as Osvaldo Barbieri a.k.a. BOT from Piacenza. In 2014, he edited the catalogue “Futurismo: Collezione Mughini”. His most recent research has been published in the “International Yearbook of Futurism Studies”, edited by Günter Berghaus.
https://www.libreriapontremoli.it/
Valentina Mirabella is Curator of Romance Collections at the British Library and she specializes in Italian post-1850 printed books.