Description:

Francesca Pola Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer Chair in Italian Studies

Francesca Pola is an historian and critic of contemporary art who contributes to various specialist publications and curates exhibitions. Since 1999 she has been teaching and conducting research at the Institute for the History of Art of the Università Cattolica (where she graduated, specialized and received her PhD with full marks and honours and is currently Adjunct Professor) in Milan and Brescia; since 2003 she has been Art History instructor at the Milan center of IES. Her studies have focused, in particular, on twentieth century sculpture, American art from the 1920s to the period after the Second World War, Italian and International Postwar Art of the 1950s and1960s, topics of cultural identity connected to artistic practices from the 1950s to today, and abstract art from the 1980s to the present. Her books and essays have been published by major Italian and foreign institutions such as the Fondazione Piero Manzoni (Milan), the Forum Austriaco di Cultura (Milan), the Institut Mathildenhöhe (Darmstadt), the Italian Cultural Institute (Los Angeles), the Kaiserliche Hofburg (Innsbruck), the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice), the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), the Städel Museum (Frankfurt) and the Gagosian Gallery (London), among others. From 2009 to 2011 she was the Curator of MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, where she developed special curatorial projects based on multimedia experience of art and digital art history challenges. She is currently Curator of Multimedia Projects for Gallerie d’Italia, ongoing at their museum venues in Milan and Vicenza.