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A Land for Chickpeas: Gianfranco Baruchello’s Agricola Cornelia and Post-Humanism

Calvagno, Viviana
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Abstract
In 1973 the Italian artist Gianfranco Baruchello established a limited agrarian company called Agricola Cornelia S.p.A. in the northern Roman countryside. The production of food was intended as an artistic gesture meant to criticize the alienating rhythms and politics of our capitalist society. Until 1981, Baruchello farmed land, bred animals, and made art there. In these eight years, Baruchello’s initial political premise organically grew into a personal connection with the natural world. As this thesis attempts to show, the evolution of this engagement was the result of a profound and authentic interaction with the land, characterized by symbolic visions, emotional involvement, and daily practical efforts. By relying mainly on primary sources, this thesis argues that Agricola Cornelia precociously manifested an ecological sensibility absent instead in other contemporary art practices. Baruchello’s personal connection to nature is, further, examined through the lens of 21st -century post-humanist studies that argue for an ecology of enmeshed, interconnected, multispecies existence. Agricola Cornelia appears, in this light, precocious in its progressive ecological thinking that, while not post-human per se, speaks to the urgent need to cure the damaged relationship between humans and nature.
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Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2022.
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2022
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Gianfranco Baruchello
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Calvagno, Viviana. "A Land for Chickpeas: Gianfranco Baruchello’s Agricola Cornelia and Post-Humanism". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2022.
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