Adrian R. Duran [University of Nebraska Omaha], "Media Review. Tenley Bick (curator).Costellazione," Italica 99, no. 3 (2022): 428–430.
https://doi.org/10.5406/23256672.99.3.15
Excerpt:
Costellazione (www.costell-azione.com), the digital project by Florida State University art historian and curator Tenley Bick, which is “dedicated to mapping new directions in contemporary Italian art,” is a wonderful addition to the discourse and offers many promising assets to scholars and students across the landscape of Italian Art History, language, and cultural studies. Poised to debut its third series in the
fall of 2022, this website/Instagram feed/video archive offers important exposure to younger Italian artists, particularly from/within the Italo-African diaspora, and offers a platform that should be looked to as a model for future projects and investigations from across our fields.
Italian studies has long discussed the millennia-deep social, political, and cultural links between the peninsula and the continent of Africa. Contemporary Italian art history, however, has not necessarily kept pace. Perhaps this is because of the presumed internationalism of contemporary art. Perhaps it is because of the overwhelming Eurocentrism of the discipline, even this far into the twenty-first century. Perhaps it is the deeply complex history of Italian colonialism. These all notwithstanding, Costellazione is a very compelling corrective.
