Conference Activity

2023

“A History of Black Diaspora Artists in Italy as Prompt: Early Modern Questions, Contemporary Decolonial Currents." American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) Conference, Fort Worth, May 18–20.

"Linee di fuga (Flight Lines): On Paper Media and the Construction of Images in the Work of Francesco Simeti." College Art Association (CAA) Conference, New York, Feb. 15–18.

2022

"Theatre as Catapult: Staging Revolutionary Worlds in the Work of Pistoletto and Lo Zoo." The American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) Conference, Bologna, May 29–June 1.

2021

"Postcolonial Retrofuturism: Alessandro Ceresoli’s Linea Tagliero Prototypes." College Art Association (CAA) Conference, virtual, Feb. 10–13.

2020

“Porta d’Europa: Monuments, Interventions, and Migration on Lampedusa.” “Italian Borderlands: Restrictions, Breaches, Encounters” Conference, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, City University of New York, Apr. 24–25 (Paper accepted. Conference canceled due to Coronavirus).

“Ghosts for the Present: Interventionist Practices and Postcoloniality in Contemporary Italian Art.” 108^th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Chicago, Feb. 12–15.

2019

“Wu Ming’s Postcoloniality: Collectivism and Countercultural Aesthetics for Contemporary Italy.” Winthrop-King Institute International Conference, “Does ‘la lutte continue?’ The Global Afterlives of May ’68,” Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, Mar. 28–30.

“Presenze: Italian Avant-Gardism and Art Discourse in Late 1950s Turin.” AAIS Conference, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, North Carolina, Mar. 14–16.

“Porta d’Europa: Art and Activism in Italy in the Age of the European Migration Crisis.” Winthrop-King Institute Conference, “European Migrations: Infrastructures of Mobility, Confinement, and Hospitality in the E.U,” Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, Feb. 22.

2018

“Minor Productions: The Work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, 1965–1970.” 106^th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Los Angeles, Feb. 21–24.

2017

“Productive Plagiarism: Michelangelo Pistoletto and Vettor Pisani’s Plagio, 1970–1976.” The Center for Italian Modern Art Study Day, “Post-It: Reconsidering the Postmodern in Italian Art and Performance since 1965,” New York City, New York. Feb. 13–14. [Program]

2016

“Anachronic Casts: The Sculpture of Giulio Paolini in the Years of Lead, 1968–1982.” The American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) Annual Conference, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Apr. 21–23.

“Beyond Somalia Anno Uno: Somali Narrative Film in Postcolonial East Africa.” 104th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Washington, D.C., Feb. 3–6.

2015

“Figure as Model: The Early Work of Michelangelo Pistoletto.” The American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) Annual Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, Mar. 26–28.

2011 

“‘Somaliwood,’ Ohio: Somali Cinema as Diasporic Phenomenon.” Fifteenth International Triennial Symposium on African Art, Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), UCLA, Mar. 23–27.

2008

“Splitting the Present: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Photo-Collages.” Twelfth Annual University of Southern California Department of Art History Graduate Student Symposium, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, Mar. 8.

2005 

“The Psychological Experience of the World in Perspective: Albertian Theory, Brunelleschian Optics, and the Humanist Body.” First Annual Stanford University Graduate Conference in French and Italian, Stanford, California, May 6–7.

2023

Co-curator with Elizabeth Giorgis of the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) 2023 Executive Committee Conference Series: "'A Feeling of Freedom': Toward a New Italianist Art History." Two panels: 1) "The Power of the Visual: Post- and Decolonial Approaches in Italianist Art History" and 2) Lessons on Italy from Africanist Art History (co-curated with Elizabeth Giorgis, The Africa Institute, Sharjah). Invited curator.

2021

Panel organizer and chair, "'Italianicity is not Italy': Questioning Italian Art History." 109th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, New York, Feb. 10–13. Sponsored by the Italian Art Society (forthcoming).

2020

"'Una Visione Globale': Arte Povera's Worlds." Four-part lecture series curated by Tenley Bick for Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, March 21–May 2, 2020. Event link: https://www.magazzino.art/events/%E2%80%9Cuna-visione-globale%E2%80%9D-arte-povera%E2%80%99s-worlds. Recorded Q&As: On Ezio Gribaudo with Victoria Surliuga (Mar. 21), with Valérie Da Costa on Pino Pascali (Apr.4), on Michelangelo Pistoletto with Adrian Duran (following my own lecture) (Apr. 21).

Session organizer, CAA-composed panel, “Social Practice and the Politics of Artistic Intervention Today.” 108th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Chicago, Feb. 12–15.

2018        

Panel organizer and chair, “Processi italiani: Examining Process in Postwar Italian Art,1945–1980.” 106^th College Art Association (CAA) Conference, Los Angeles, Feb. 21–24. Sponsored by the Italian Art Society.

2016            

Panel organizer and chair, “African Arts and Italian Colonialism: A Missing Africanist History.” 104^th CAA Conference, Washington, D.C., Feb. 3–6. Sponsored by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA).

2015            

Panel organizer and chair, “Unattended Figures: Revisiting Figuration in Postwar Italian Art, 1945–1980.” The American Association for Italian Studies Annual Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, Mar. 26–28. Sponsored status: Italian Art Society.

2011            

Chair, “Current Studies in African Film,” organized by Doran Ross. Fifteenth International Triennial Symposium on African Art, Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA), UCLA, Mar. 23–26.