Marxisti e marxisti perplessi. Una storia (dell’arte) ancora da scrivere

In 1980 Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti published with Editoriale Nova of Milan Marxismo perplesso, a collection of his most important essays on Marxism, some of them still unpublished. Although largely ignored, the book shows an innovative perspective on Marxism and visual arts, which appears to be in strong contrast with the interpretation of Marxism adopted by the most influential Italian art historians. This paper aims at presenting Ragghianti’s Marxismo perplesso in the context of Italian and international reception of Marxism in the visual arts from the Fifties to the end of the Seventies.