Four New Art and Ecology Books Released in Italy

Four notable publications have recently hit Italian bookstores, blending art history, ecology, photography, and cultural geography. Marco Belpoliti's 'Il segreto di Goya' (Johan & Levi, 2023, 56 pp., €10) argues that the artist's progressive deafness, which struck him in his early thirties, was the key to understanding his artistic development. Jane Bennett's 'Materia Vibrante' (Timeo, 2023, 258 pp., €22) combines a philosophical and political project to rethink matter as active and vibrant, offering a fresh take on ecological debates. 'L’Italia è un desiderio. Fotografie, paesaggi e visioni 1842-2022' (Electa, 2023, 432 pp., €48) is a catalogue uniting the collections of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia in Florence and the Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea di Milano in Cinisello Balsamo, surveying Italian landscape photography from 1842 to 2022. The 25th issue of 'The Passenger' (Iperborea, 2023, 192 pp., €22) is dedicated to the Mediterranean, portraying it as a paradoxical border space, abandoned yet a tourist destination.