Marshall Plan Modernism: Italian Postwar Abstraction and the Beginnings of Autonomia.

• Date: 01 August 2019
• Author: Tomaselli, Michael J.

Mansoor, Jaleh, Marshall Plan Modernism: Italian Postwar Abstraction and the Beginnings of Autonomia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. 288 pages. Paperback, $26.95.

As Professor Jaleh Mansoor begins Marshall Plan Modernism, she highlights that the perceived gap between history, theory, and practice is nothing more than imagined (p.4). This breaking down of imagined barriers is a perfect characterization of Mansoor's work; only she chooses to break down the imagined barriers of relevancy to questions in the field. Mansoor even states that the intention of her work is to, "reopen questions of analytical and interpretive method to pose a way out of the usual impasse between formalist autonomy... and social reflective history" (p. 38). In doing so, Mansoor chooses not to create a definitive answer to questions of Lucio Fontana or Alberto Burri's work but breathe new life into questions deemed irrelevant.

In order to do so, Mansoor carefully articulates the coexistence of culture...