Alik Cavaliere's Anti-Authoritarian Aesthetics: A Postwar Italian Practice and Its Contemporary Resonances (Routledge Focus on Art History and Visual Studies)

This book offers the first comprehensive English-language study of Italian sculptor Alik Cavaliere (1926-1998), repositioning him as a significant contributor to the international transformation of sculpture in the postwar period and revealing his sustained engagement with debates on objecthood, theatricality, and viewer participation. Drawing on previously unpublished journals and close analyses of sculptures and installations, the book demonstrates how Cavaliere developed a distinctive anti-authoritarian aesthetic that resisted singular interpretation through ontological instability, spatial fragmentation, and participatory environments.It situates his work in dialogue with key figures including Arturo Martini, Bertolt Brecht, Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, Louise Bourgeois, and Arte Povera, revealing his original response to the crisis of sculpture from the 1960s onwards.Combining archival research, close visual analysis, and intellectual history, the study traces the conceptual con