Maria Elena Versari
Carnegie Mellon University, College of Fine Art, Faculty Member
- Historiography of the Avant-Garde, Fascist Architecture & Art, Fascism and Modernism, Dadaism, Futurism, Totalitarianism, and 42 moreHistoriography (in Art History), 20th century Avant-Garde, Abstraction, Photomontage, Factography, Broom, Russian & Soviet Art, El Lissitzky, Enrico Prampolini, Josef Peeters, Vinicio Paladini, Ivo Pannaggi, Photomontage, Fillia (Luigi Colombo), Ruggero Vasari, I10 (journal), Oswald Spengler, Giorgio de Chirico, Waldemar George, P. M. Bardi, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, Quadrante, Katherine Dreier, Constructivism (art), Machine art, La Mascherata degli Impotenti, Robots (art), Cubism, History and Memory, Nationalism And State Building, The Material Life of Things, Brancusi, Cultural policy under Fascism, Rationalism (Architecture), Raun, Machines and Art, Iconoclasm, Kinetic Art, Umberto Boccioni, Diaspora and transnationalism, Fascist Monuments, Fascist propaganda, Anti-Fascism, and Fascist Aestheticsedit
- Maria Elena Versari is an art and architectural historian. Her research focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries and in... moreMaria Elena Versari is an art and architectural historian. Her research focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries and in particular on the intersection between art and technology, the international avant-garde and totalitarian aesthetics.
She studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore, where she received a PhD in Art History with a doctoral dissertation devoted to the international relations of Futurism in the 1920s. She held the positions of Assistant Professor of 19th- and 20th-Century Art at the University of Messina and Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University. More recently, she was the Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor in the Humanities Research Center at Rice University and Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute. She has worked as a Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris and the Wolfsonian Museum and Library and has been a member of The Material Life of Things Research Group (2010-2011) at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History and Arthur Vining Davis Foundation Teaching Fellow in the Humanities Scholars Program at Carnegie Mellon University.
She has published two monographs, Constantin Brancusi (Florence, 2005) and Wassily Kandinsky e l’astrattismo (Florence 2007; French transl., Paris 2008; Portuguese Transl. 2011) and edited the republication of Ruggero Vasari’s seminal Futurist dramas L’Angoscia delle Macchine and Raun (Palermo 2009). She has written several articles devoted to Italian Futurism, avant-garde internationalism, Expressionism, Cubism, art historiography, Fascist aesthetics and architecture and 20th-century sculpture.
Her translation and critical edition of Umberto Boccioni’s seminal book Pittura scultura futuriste (Dinamismo plastico) has been published by the Getty Research Institute Publications in 2016.
She’s currently completing a book manuscript titled The Foreign Policy of the Avant-Garde and pursuing research for a second book on political iconoclasm in the 20th century.edit
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Research Interests: Mythology, Dystopian Literature, Avant-Garde Theater, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism, and 34 moreFriedrich Nietzsche, Twentieth Century Germany, Dystopian Fiction, 20th century Avant-Garde, Prostitution (Medieval Studies), Machines and Art, Raoul Hausmann, Ancient Greek Prostitution, Entartete Kunst, Cesare Lombroso, Kurt Schwitters, Enrico Prampolini, Sacred Prostitution, Ruggero Vasari, Katherine Dreier, Machine art, Raun, Robots (art), La Mascherata degli Impotenti, Guglielmo Jannelli, Vera Steiner, Alexander Mohr, Der Futurismus, Rudolf Belling, Rudolf Blümner, Hans Hildebrandt, Tai Kambara, Ivan Goll, Vera Idelson, Ilya Zdanevitch, Jalu Kurek, Der Sturm, Theodor Däubler, and Enrico Ferri
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http://www.spaziindecisi.it/totally-lost-2016/ Totally lost is an open photographic and video research project that discovers, surveys and maps abandoned architectural heritage sites linked to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century... more
http://www.spaziindecisi.it/totally-lost-2016/
Totally lost is an open photographic and video research project that discovers, surveys and maps abandoned architectural heritage sites linked to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century in Europe. Photographers, video makers and urban explorers have been invited to contribute to the evolving documentation of desolate buildings, in order to generate discussion and bring attention to the form of each historic structure.
Totally lost is an open photographic and video research project that discovers, surveys and maps abandoned architectural heritage sites linked to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century in Europe. Photographers, video makers and urban explorers have been invited to contribute to the evolving documentation of desolate buildings, in order to generate discussion and bring attention to the form of each historic structure.
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in Word & Image, vo. 34, n. 3, 2018, pp. 251-267.
Research Interests: Iconoclasm, Politics, Fascism, Nationalism, Totalitarianism, and 14 moreRisorgimento, Inscriptions, Fascist propaganda, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Anita Garibaldi, Italian Risorgimento, Fascist Architecture & Art, Romagna, Giuseppe Mazzini, Italian Fascist Architecture, Fascist Aesthetics, Faenza, Forli, and Mostra Della Rivoluzione Fascista
in The Voice of Light. Delaunay, Apollinaire and Orphism, exhibition catalogue, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, 2017.
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in "L’Italia nella Grande Duerra. Nuove ricerche e bilanci storiografici," ed. by Carlo De Maria, BraDyPus, Rome 2017, pp. 101-112.
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in "Biografie, percorsi e networks nell'Età contemporanea. Un approccio transnazionale tra ricerca, didattica e Public History," ed. by Eloisa Betti and Carlo De Maria, BraDypUS Communicating Cultural Heritage, Rome 2018, pp. 37-52
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in "Clionet. Rivista di Public History", 1/2017.
http://rivista.clionet.it/vol1/dossier/architetture_tra_le_due_guerre/versari-sospensione-metafisica-retorica-di-regime-e-immagine-dell-antico-nel-dibattito-sul-razionalismo-italiano
http://rivista.clionet.it/vol1/dossier/architetture_tra_le_due_guerre/versari-sospensione-metafisica-retorica-di-regime-e-immagine-dell-antico-nel-dibattito-sul-razionalismo-italiano
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in "Clionet. Rivista di Public History", 1/2017.
Research Interests: Iconoclasm, Fascism, Neo-Fascism, Anti-Fascism, Fascist Italy, and 12 moreItalian fascism, Fascist propaganda, Personality Cults and Iconoclasm in Soviet Style Societies, Fascist Architecture & Art, Iconoclasia, Iconoclasmo, Italian Fascist Architecture, Fascist Aesthetics, Fascist Culture, Fascist Monuments, Mussolini Damnatio Memoriae, and History of Fascism and Antifascism
in "Enrico Prampolini. Futurism, Stage Design and the Polish Avant-Garde Theatre," exhibition catalogue edited by Przemyslaw Strozek, (Lodz: Museum Sztuki, June 2017).
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in "International Yearbook of Futurism Studies," vol. 8, 2018, pp. 245-269.
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in "Jules Schmalzigaug. Futurist, 1882-1917," exhibition catalogue edited by Phillip Van den Bossche and Adriaan Gonnissen (Ostend: Mu.ZEE): 212-229.
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in the proceedings from the congress "Picasso. Sculptures," Musée national Picasso, Paris, 24-26 March 2016
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in "Futurism: a Microhistory," ed. by Luca Somigli, Sascha Bru and Bart Van Den Bossche (Oxford: Legenda, publishing: expected end 2017).
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in "The Voice of Light. Delaunay, Apollinaire and Orphism", exhibition catalogue (Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen) (printing, expected December 2017).
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in Annali di Italianistica, 33 (2015), pp. 187-204.
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This essay reconstructs the micro-history of some of the most influential examples of Futurist sculpture. It retraces the fate of Umberto Boccioni’s plaster sculptures and clarifies the context in which the bronze copies now in major... more
This essay reconstructs the micro-history of some of the most influential examples of Futurist sculpture. It retraces the fate of Umberto Boccioni’s plaster sculptures and clarifies the context in which the bronze copies now in major international museums have been conceived, realized and interpreted over the years. It also reveals which technical specificities and theoretical models determined in the 1960s the fate and fortune of the sculptures by another major Futurist artist, Giacomo Balla.
Research Interests: Modern Art, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism, Sculpture, Copies, and 11 moreLucio Fontana, Umberto Boccioni, Casts, Copies and Replicas, Unique forms of continuity in space, Development of a Bottle in Space, Giacomo Balla, Futurismo, Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, Biennale 1968, Elio Marchegiani, and L'Obelisco gallery
The article announces the rediscovery of a series of objects that were part of Mussolini’s own collection of propaganda art, seized by the Italian authorities after WW2. They were originally held in Mussolini's hilltop retreat near his... more
The article announces the rediscovery of a series of objects that were part of Mussolini’s own collection of propaganda art, seized by the Italian authorities after WW2. They were originally held in Mussolini's hilltop retreat near his hometown of Predappio, the small fortress of the Rocca delle Caminate, and in the nearby Villa Carpena located on the outskirts of the city of Forlì. They were found in the storage room of the Archivio di Stato of Forlì and the author was able to identify them on the basis of unpublished documents from the Archivio Centrale dello Stato in Rome.
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In 1921, Marc Bloch published an essay entitled 'Reflections of an historian оп the fake news under the war', in which he justified his interest in that somewhat unusual subject: 'Our ancestors did not quibble оуег these sorts of things,... more
In 1921, Marc Bloch published an essay entitled 'Reflections of an historian оп the fake news under the war', in which he justified his interest in that somewhat unusual subject: 'Our ancestors did not quibble оуег these sorts of things, they rejected епог, when they recognized it as such, and they were not concerned аЬош its repercussions. That's why the information they left us doesn't allow us to satisfy our curiosity, which is of по interest tо them' (Bloch 1999: 14). What I propose to examine in this chapter аге the traces of а wide апау of interpretations and misinrerpretations that
Futurism triggered in Germany, and the effect they had оп defining а new model of avant-garde practice.
Futurism triggered in Germany, and the effect they had оп defining а new model of avant-garde practice.
Research Interests: Thomas Mann, Futurism, Sigmund Freud, Dada, Historiography (in Art History), and 14 moreGeorg Simmel, Alfred Döblin, Dadaism, Ferruccio Busoni, 20th Century German Art, Ruggero Vasari, Der Sturm, Italian Futurism, Herwarth Walden, Ludwig Meidner, Hermann Bahr, Richard Huelsenbeck, Die Aktion, and Adolf Behne
Ruggero Vasari was a vital figure in the history of Futurism and played a key role in the movement’s relations with Central and Eastern Europe. The specific interplay between his artistic identity as an Italian Futurist on one hand and... more
Ruggero Vasari was a vital figure in the history of Futurism and played a key role in the movement’s relations with Central and Eastern Europe. The specific interplay between his artistic identity as an Italian Futurist on one hand and his predominantly European professional contacts and career on the other offers a symptomatic ensemble of elements that might help the historian when reassessing theoretical definitions of the avant-garde and its international modes of operation. This essay attempts to offer a more exacting explanation of what were the coordinates of Futurism at play
in these international settings and in Vasari’s work itself. In this sense, it analyses the international alliances which he established in the1920s with several artists and intellectuals in the German capital at the time, such as Ivan Puni, Karlis Zale, Viktor Shklovsky and Viking Eggeling. It retraces the way in which Vasari’s conception of radical art and his attitude of stylistic ecumenism succeeded in attracting to Futurism artists who, often as a result of their condition as political exiles, rejected the more overtly politicized tenets of Constructivism. It concludes by outlining the repercussions that this large avant-garde network had on the fate of Vasari’s own activity as a dramatist.
in these international settings and in Vasari’s work itself. In this sense, it analyses the international alliances which he established in the1920s with several artists and intellectuals in the German capital at the time, such as Ivan Puni, Karlis Zale, Viktor Shklovsky and Viking Eggeling. It retraces the way in which Vasari’s conception of radical art and his attitude of stylistic ecumenism succeeded in attracting to Futurism artists who, often as a result of their condition as political exiles, rejected the more overtly politicized tenets of Constructivism. It concludes by outlining the repercussions that this large avant-garde network had on the fate of Vasari’s own activity as a dramatist.
Research Interests: Russian Literature, Aesthetics, Avant-Garde Cinema, Art, Literature, and 45 moreVisual Music, Visual Literacy, Avant-Garde Theater, The Avant-Garde and Politics, Modernism, Cinema, Avant-Garde, Russian Intellectual History, Russian avant-garde art, Poland, Transnationalism, internationalism, 20th century Avant-Garde, Exile Literature, Synesthesia, Berlin, Polish Art and Architecture, Art and Politics, Machines and Art, Sicily, Abstract, Latvia, European Avant Garde, Viktor Shklovsky, Russian Literature in Exile, Film Sound and Music, El Lissitzky, Ruggero Vasari, Constructivism (art), Der Futurismus, Ivan Goll, Ivan Puni, Jean Pougny, Karlis Zale, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, Juhani Pallasmaa, Multisensoriality, Crossmodality, Oskar Fischinger, Walter Ruttmann, Richard Cytowic, William Moritz, Screen Aesthetics and Formal Analysis, Cult, Experimental and Avant Garde Film, and Popular Music and Popular Culture, Critical Theory and Cultural Studies
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Research Interests: Communism, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism, German Expressionism, Dada, and 13 moreHistoriography (in Art History), Anatolii Lunacharskii, Umberto Boccioni, Otto Dix, Amedeo Modigliani, El Lissitzky, Ruggero Vasari, Valori Plastici, Theo van Doesburg, Lajos Kassák, Novembergruppe, Section D'or, and Tattilismo
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Research Interests: Fascism, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris (Le Corbusier), Fascism and Classical Antiquity, Modern Architecture, Fascism and Modernism, and 11 morePhotomontage, Cultural policy under Fascism, Modern Italian Architecture, Quadrante, P. M. Bardi, Rationalism (Architecture), Waldemar George, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, Cahiers d'Art, Zervos, and Tériade
While several studies have offered re-evaluations of Umberto Boccioni's sculptures and sculptural theories, scholars have generally failed to address systematically the specificities of the formal and technical choices that the Futurist... more
While several studies have offered re-evaluations of Umberto Boccioni's sculptures and sculptural theories, scholars have generally failed to address systematically the specificities of the formal and technical choices that the Futurist artist made in his overall sculptural practice. This critical attitude (or lack thereof) is partly sustained by the general assumption that Boccioni's sculptures represent a coherent projection not only of his Futurist theories of art but also of his work in painting. Challenging this belief, the present article aims to reassess the role and function of Boccioni's use of plaster and plaster casts in the framework of his evolving sculptural practice and to highlight the contradictions and challenges that these works created within Futurist aesthetics.
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This chapter addresses the theoretical and ideological development of the so-called ‘machine art’, which was outlined in 1922 in a homonymous manifesto by the painters Ivo Pannaggi and Vinicio Paladini and launched later that year in a... more
This chapter addresses the theoretical and ideological development of the
so-called ‘machine art’, which was outlined in 1922 in a homonymous manifesto by the painters Ivo Pannaggi and Vinicio Paladini and launched later that year in a revised version signed by Enrico Prampolini. While scholars have largely tackled the thematic specificity and visual impact of this text within the general development of Italian Futurist art in the course of the 1920s, they have failed to take up the issue of its specific place in the ongoing construction of the European artistic framework of the 1920s. This essay aims to redefine the history of the concept of Futurist machine art from a different perspective, by highlighting its complex and contradictory relations with contemporary artistic practices in Europe and with the emergence of Constructivism.
so-called ‘machine art’, which was outlined in 1922 in a homonymous manifesto by the painters Ivo Pannaggi and Vinicio Paladini and launched later that year in a revised version signed by Enrico Prampolini. While scholars have largely tackled the thematic specificity and visual impact of this text within the general development of Italian Futurist art in the course of the 1920s, they have failed to take up the issue of its specific place in the ongoing construction of the European artistic framework of the 1920s. This essay aims to redefine the history of the concept of Futurist machine art from a different perspective, by highlighting its complex and contradictory relations with contemporary artistic practices in Europe and with the emergence of Constructivism.
Research Interests: Marxism, Futurism, Walter Benjamin, Russian & Soviet Art, Photomontage, and 20 moreAntonio Gramsci, 20th century Avant-Garde, Oswald Spengler, Advertisement, Abstraction, Photomontage, Factography, Broom, Ivo Pannaggi, Enrico Prampolini, Giorgio de Chirico, Vinicio Paladini, Josef Peeters, El Lissitzky, Paul Strand, Fillia (Luigi Colombo), Ruggero Vasari, Katherine Dreier, I10 (journal), Constructivism (art), Machine art, and Arte Meccanica
Research Interests: Fascism, Futurism, 20th century Avant-Garde, Berlin, Germany, and 21 morePresentism, Raoul Hausmann, Enrico Prampolini, Hannah Höch, Ruggero Vasari, Der Futurismus, Der Sturm, Italian Futurism, Istituto Nazionale per Esposizioni Italiane all'Estero, Valori Plastici, Herwarth Walden, Leonardo foundation, Formiggini, Theo van Doesburg, Anton Giulio Bragaglia, International Congress of Progressive Artists, Düsseldorf 1922, Presentismus, Dzirkal, Grosse Futuristische Ausstellung In Berlin, and Novembergruppe
Research Interests: Fascism, Totalitarianism, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris (Le Corbusier), Fascism and Classical Antiquity, Modern Architecture, and 10 moreFascism and Modernism, Elites under Fascism, Fascist Italy, Cultural policy under Fascism, Italian fascism, Fascist propaganda, Comparative Fascism; Intellectual Origins of Fascism, Quadrante, P. M. Bardi, and Fascist Architecture & Art
Research Interests: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurism, Czech & Slovak Studies, Czech Literature, 20th century Avant-Garde, and 17 morePrague, Devetsil, Enrico Prampolini, Ruggero Vasari, Clarté, Esposizione Italiana D'Avanguardia a Praga, Lajos Kassák, International Modern Art Exhibition Geneva, Frans Masereel, Josef Capek, Emil Filla, Kabinett J. B. Neumann, Aufruf Zur Elementaren Kunst, Rougena Zatkova, Pocarini, Camerlich, and International Union for the Artists
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Avant-gardes et réversions Colloque international 11-12-13 octobre 2018 Nice Musée Matisse -Campus Carlone IDEX Program RAG : ANR-15-IDEX-01 Il mio intervento si propone di analizzare la questione della materialità delle opere futuriste... more
Avant-gardes et réversions Colloque international 11-12-13 octobre 2018 Nice Musée Matisse -Campus Carlone IDEX Program RAG : ANR-15-IDEX-01
Il mio intervento si propone di analizzare la questione della materialità delle opere futuriste e in particolare di diversi lavori di Boccioni, Balla e Prampolini nel contesto del rinnovato interesse verso le avanguardie negli anni Sessanta. È questo un periodo in cui assistiamo a un diretto coinvolgimento degli artisti contemporanei e delle gallerie d’arte nello studio e nella promozione delle opere futuriste. È anche un momento in cui il problema della conservazione delle opere originali della prima parte del secolo si intreccia a nuove formulazioni di diffusione che portano alla ribalta il problema del mercato e dell’unicità della produzione creativa. Significativo in questo frangente è in particolare il lavoro svolto dall’artista Elio Marchegiani sulla produzione di Giacomo Balla. Analizzando diversi esempi di ricontestualizzazione museale, ricostruzione di opere perdute e creazione di copie commerciali, questa comunicazione si propone di offrire una nuova interpretazione del rapporto tra avanguardia storica e neo-avanguardia, del ruolo centrale che la questione della materialità gioca al suo interno.
Il mio intervento si propone di analizzare la questione della materialità delle opere futuriste e in particolare di diversi lavori di Boccioni, Balla e Prampolini nel contesto del rinnovato interesse verso le avanguardie negli anni Sessanta. È questo un periodo in cui assistiamo a un diretto coinvolgimento degli artisti contemporanei e delle gallerie d’arte nello studio e nella promozione delle opere futuriste. È anche un momento in cui il problema della conservazione delle opere originali della prima parte del secolo si intreccia a nuove formulazioni di diffusione che portano alla ribalta il problema del mercato e dell’unicità della produzione creativa. Significativo in questo frangente è in particolare il lavoro svolto dall’artista Elio Marchegiani sulla produzione di Giacomo Balla. Analizzando diversi esempi di ricontestualizzazione museale, ricostruzione di opere perdute e creazione di copie commerciali, questa comunicazione si propone di offrire una nuova interpretazione del rapporto tra avanguardia storica e neo-avanguardia, del ruolo centrale che la questione della materialità gioca al suo interno.
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2nd Annual Conference of the AIPH – Italian Association of Public History, Pisa, Italy, 5-9 June 2018
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Seminário Internacional "O Dilema de Boccioni: em busca de sua obra escultórica"/International Conference "Boccioni’s Dilemma: In Search of his Sculptural Oeuvre". September 27 and 28, 2018 Auditório Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP,... more
Seminário Internacional "O Dilema de Boccioni: em busca de sua obra escultórica"/International Conference
"Boccioni’s Dilemma: In Search of his Sculptural Oeuvre".
September 27 and 28, 2018
Auditório Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP, Sao Paulo, Brasil
"Boccioni’s Dilemma: In Search of his Sculptural Oeuvre".
September 27 and 28, 2018
Auditório Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP, Sao Paulo, Brasil
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Colloque international "Picasso. Sculptures," Musée national Picasso-Paris, 25 mars 2016
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Forlì, Istituto Storico della Resistenza e dell'Età Contemporanea, December 12th, 2015
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paper presented at the 103rd Annual College Art Association (CAA) Conference, New York, 11-14 February 2015.
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paper presented at the conference "The Art Market Past and Present: Lessons for the Future?," organized by Sotheby’s and The Burlington Magazine, London, 31 October-1 November, 2014.
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Invited Lecture, University of Kansas, Department of French and Italian, October 3rd, 2014.
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"Visualising War: The Iconography of Conflict and the Italian Nation", Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna-The British School at Rome, Rome, 18-19 September 2014
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"Locating Expressionism", LACMA, Los Angeles, September 6-7, 2014
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paper presented at Material Meanings. Third Biannual conference of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (EAM), University of Kent, Canterbury, September 7-9, 2012.
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paper presented at ARCA's Third Annual Conference, Amelia, Umbria, 9- 10 July, 2011.
http://art-crime.blogspot.com/2011/07/maria-elena-versari-on-iconoclasm-by.html
http://art-crime.blogspot.com/2011/07/maria-elena-versari-on-iconoclasm-by.html
paper presented at Moving in Three Dimensions. A Conference on Sculpture and Change, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, May 11-12 2012.
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paper presented at the congress "Materiali e tecniche tra Futurismo e Ritorno al Classico. Ricerche, analisi, prospettive," Pisa 20-21 giugno 2016.
in "Visualizzare la guerra: l'iconografia del conflitto e l'Italia" a cura di Simona Storchi e Giuliana Pieri (in corso di pubblicazione)
