Opere moltiplicate, opera aperta. Serialità e anonimato nelle ricerche cinevisuali degli anni Sessanta

In the early 1960s, groups of artists begin to develop collective research in kinetic art and visual perception. By combining art, industrial design and technology, these ‘aesthetic operators’ lay the foundations for a multiplied art, made for everybody. The aim of their work is to open art to a genuine democratization process since the viewer would interact with these manipulable objects. However, this point of view questions the art myth of the ‘unique and unrepeatable’ artwork, which is replaced by the ‘open work’, produced in series by an interdisciplinary team. Moreover, the theory of anonymity and the multiples increase the critical debate concerning the concept of authenticity. The paper proposes a reflection on the diffusion of multiplied art during the 1960s. Through the analysis of the archival documents – some previously unpublished – the study identifies the crucial passages in which the experimentations of programmed Italian artists have embraced the democratic ideology of seriality.