Jacopo Galimberti: Images of Class

Andreas Petrossiants talks to author Jacopo Galimberti about his book, Images of Class: Operaismo, Autonomia and the Visual Arts (1962–1988), published in 2022. Jacopo Galimberti is an art historian and Assistant Professor at IUAV (Venice). He is the author of Individuals Against Individualism: Art Collectives in Western Europe (1956-1969) (Liverpool) and Images of Class: Operaismo, Autonomia and the Visual Arts (1962-1988) (Verso), which historicizes those political currents and movements alongside visual and literary culture that was either in dialogue or in debate with the figures he centers—as well as the revolutionary aesthetic/cultural theory that they produced through workers’ inquiries and research on forms of postwar labor, and later participation in extraparliamentary militant social and urban movements. In addition to providing an art and architecture historical perspective on these movements, the book acts as a very helpful entry-point to operaist theory, which Classe Operaia called an “anti-dialectical Marxism,” including the work of Mario Tronti, Rita di Leo, Mandredo Tarfuri, Silvia Federici, and the various groups and grassroots movements that would constitute autonomia. Referenced in this episode: Rossella Biscotti, The Trial at e-flux (2012)