The Re-identification of Pop Art: its Reception from an Italian Perspective

The Pop Art phenomenon has been a subject of discussion for art critics, gallerists, collectors and the artists themselves, since its first appearance in the '50s. However, since the '80s there has been a strong interest in retrospectively studying the current, trying not only to define its spread in geographical and chronological terms, but also to identify which artists and single pieces of artwork can be labeled as 'Pop'. Despite the efforts made in describing the current, previous research has trivialized it, so much so that the term Pop has been misattributed, and its features are not precise. Within this framework, this book aims to investigate the artistic fortunes of Pop Art in Italy, trying to understand whether what happened in Italy could be identified as such, especially focusing on the period between 1962 and 1964, and the period immediately after.