The Shop Window as Artistic Device: 50 Years of Italian Art in Display

A scholarly essay on Artribune examines the shop window as a dispositif (Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben) in Italian art over the past 50 years. The text traces how artists have used, subverted, or critiqued the commercial display case. Key examples include: MAMbo's Sala delle Ciminiere in Bologna, where Lorenzo Balbi curated Julian Charrière's works visible from the street; Prada Marfa (2005) by Elmgreen & Dragset, a fake boutique in the Texas desert; Maurizio Cattelan's Wrong Gallery (2002–2005) in New York, a tiny glass-fronted space; Alessandro Sambini's TARA, Are We Still Alive? (2018) at Artissima, mimicking Chinese massage parlor windows; H.H. Lim's Edicola Notte in Rome (1990–2015), a former newsstand turned art space; Micol Assaël's Porta di concentrazione gravitazionale (2008) at Edicola Notte, using electromagnetic waves; Lin Yilin's Holiday (2013) at Edicola Notte, a performance eating spaghetti upside down; Anna Maria Maiolino and Sandra Lessa's ATTO (2015) at Galleria Raffaella Cortese in Milan; Flavio Favelli's La Vetrina dell'Ostensione (2001) in Bologna; and Anne Imhof's Faust (2017) at the German Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, using glass panels. The essay argues that these artistic interventions can 'profane' the commercial device, restoring common use. It references Walter Benjamin's analysis of Parisian passages and Agamben's theory of profanation. The text was written for the Critical Writing II course at NABA, Milan, a.y. 2019/2020.