LA CIRCOLAZIONE DELL¿EDITORIA SPERIMENTALE RELATIVA ALLE RICERCHE ARTISTICHE VERBOVISUALI DEL NOVECENTO

This dissertation offers a historical examination of experimental publishing practices associated with verbovisual research in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century. Within this landscape – an intricate mosaic of languages, printing techniques, and modes of dissemination – the magazine “Ana Eccetera” stands at the center of the investigation. Founded in Genoa by Anna Bontempi, Martino Oberto, and Gabriele Stocchi, “Ana Eccetera” established itself, over its thirteen years of activity (1958-1971), as a crucial national and international platform promoting a complex theoretical and aesthetic discourse that brought together language theory, poetry, and the visual arts. This discourse is reconstructed through an analysis of the issues to underline the intellectual development of Martino Oberto, its principal theorist. The study further investigates its strategies of circulation, shaped by an anarchic attitude that deliberately resisted the mechanisms of the official cultural system and its market, favoring instead alternative models grounded in personal exchange and collaboration. This dimension is illuminated through a reconstruction of “Ana Eccetera”’s connections with the Milan-based publisher Vanni Scheiwiller, the editorial collective of the Belgian independent magazine “Phantomas”, and the Neapolitan artist Luciano Caruso – who played a decisive role in both the evolution and dissemination of the magazine’s ideas. The final section explores the influence of “Ana Eccetera” on later editorial ventures, focusing in particular on the early work of verbovisual artist Ugo Carrega, who between 1963 and 1969 developed his practice within the journal’s editorial circle. Focusing on “TOOL. Quaderni di scrittura simbiotica” (1965-1967) and “āāā. azioni off kulchur” (1969), the dissertation highlights Martino Oberto’s impact on Carrega’s artistic trajectory, especially in relation to the tension between creative autonomy and the commodification of artistic work.