TENLEY BICK, PhD
Associate Professor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art
Florida State University
Department of Art History
Research
Research Areas
- Global modern and contemporary art
- Postwar and contemporary Italian art, Arte Povera
- Contemporary African and Afro-Diasporic art and cinema
- Figuration and modernism
- Contemporary art and race politics in Italy, the work of Afro-Italian artists
- Art and cultural geopolitics after 1945
- Art of the 1960s and 1970s
RESEARCH STATEMENT
My research fields are global modern and contemporary art, with special interests in post-WWII European (especially Italian) and contemporary African art and cinema (both continental and diasporic), and a focus on social art history and cultural geopolitics. In my research, I situate art historical subjects within their respective social contexts while connecting them to broader global frameworks. My first book, Michelangelo Pistoletto: Figuration and Cultural Politics (Yale University Press, 2025), examines the Italian artist’s work within the politicized cultural contexts of post-WWII Italy, Europe, and the United States against the broader geopolitical horizon for art of the 1960s. My research also includes a second book-length project in development, which brings my areas of research in contemporary Italy and Africa into dialogue with one another. Through my research, I am dedicated to the investigation of modern and contemporary art history as a global field, and to the examination of art and social context on a local and global level.
