Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity: Remaking the Image in the 1960s

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960s films are celebrated as exemplars of cinema and key texts in ushering in cinema's modern incarnation. This book explores their affinity with new impure art practices and their dialogue with postwar pictorial abstraction, revealing an Antonioni who embraced mixed and mass media and reflected on them in his cinema.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2022
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960s films are widely celebrated as both masterpieces of cinema and pivotal works in shaping the modern incarnation of the art form. By reconnecting Antonioni's visually daring films of the 1960s to the tumultuous historical context of their time, Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity delves into the crucial yet often overlooked affinity between these works and the emerging new impure art practices that emerged during that period. At the same time, the book offers a fresh and innovative interpretation of the films' dialogue with postwar pictorial abstraction. Through its exploration, the book unveils an Antonioni who embraced a diverse range of media, including mixed and mass media, and reflected on them through his cinema. This approach replaces auteuristic accounts of the director's work with a deeper understanding of its critical significance in late-twentieth-century cinema and visual culture. Matilde Nardelli is a professor at the University of West London, where she teaches courses on film and visual culture.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474444057