Francesca Pietropaolo
Francesca Pietropaolo is an Italian-born art historian, curator, and critic currently based in Venice. She is an Editor-at-Large for the Rail.
How Long Is Now?
By Francesca PietropaoloIn this past year and a half, we have lived a new experience of time—a suspended time, infinitely dilated in its “here-and-now”—during the pandemic that has profoundly changed our lives, both individually and collectively, the world over. Upon being invited to guest edit the present “Critics Page,” while reflecting on the contemporary condition that such a rupture has created, I was prompted to explore issues of temporality by posing a question that I felt could capture, and build on, the current moment of transformation: how long is now? It is a deliberately open-ended question in its possible outlines so as to allow the embrace of different approaches and perspectives.
In Conversation
ART IS A POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY: Paolo Canevari with Francesca Pietropaolo
On the occasion of his forthcoming exhibition Odi et Amo at Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea in Rome (October 9 – November 7, 2010), Paolo Canevari met with art historian and curator Francesca Pietropaolo to discuss—among other things—art, superheroes, and simplicity.
In Conversation
Giuseppe Penone with Francesca Pietropaolo and Alexis Dahan
On the occasion of the exhibit Giuseppe Penone at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, which ran from March 9 to April 17, 2021, Rail Editor-at-Large Francesca Pietropaolo and contributor Alexis Dahan held a conversation with Giuseppe Penone, discussing touch, color, the book as physical object, sculpture, poetry, animism, Man’s relationship to Nature, and much more.
In Conversation
Y.Z. KAMI with Francesca Pietropaolo
“The surface is the main thing and I believe that a painter has to invent their own surface.”
In Conversation
Eugenio Viola with Francesca Pietropaolo
This interview with the Italian-born and Bogotá-based curator Eugenio Viola, who curates the Italian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (opening later this month), took place on February 4, 2022. He from his home in Bogotá and I from mine in Venice, we connected via Zoom to talk about the possibilities and challenges of curatorial practice, the resilience of art in exploring memory and trauma, and the “necessity” to maintain a “despite-everything” optimism at this difficult historical juncture. Our dialogue encompassed Viola’s socially engaged projects at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotà, where he works, and his upcoming undertaking in Venice, with some incursions into his formative experiences in Naples.
