In a recent issue of Italian Culture, Karen Pinkus reviews Flashback, Eclipse: The Political Imaginary of Italian Art in the 1960s by Romy Golan. Click here to learn more about the book. Click here to read the full review. An excerpt appears below:

“Flashback, Eclipse stands out from other studies of postwar Italian art in its attention to disarticulation and disruption in the smooth flow of time, precisely as suggested by the two title terms and the author’s rather brilliantly idiosyncratic choice to focus on Pistoletto’s mirrors; the ‘events’ of a 1969 summer festival, Campo Urbano, held in Como; and finally, the 1970 exhibition in Rome titled ‘Vitalita del negativo.’ Golan calls Achille Bonito Oliva’s curation of the latter event ‘a turning away from the leftist militant activism of 1968 toward a politically ambiguous reflection on Fascism.’ The flashback reveals something hidden, repressed or forgotten, even if we cannot consciously comprehend what we are seeing. The eclipse cuts, revealing something we might have taken for granted in full light. Together they create an immersive sensation, aided by the numerous photographs and illustrations, and yet we are frequently jolted out of any complacency that might come from an account of dead worlds.”