Dallo Scandalo alla Normalizzazione: la Pop Art nei media generalisti italiani degli anni Sessanta = From Scandal to Normalization: Pop Art in Italian Generalist Media during the 1960s

Abstract

From Scandal to Normalization: Pop Art in Italian Generalist Media during the 1960s. This article examines the reception and legitimization of Pop Art in 1960s Italy, employing Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory as a primary analytical framework. By exploring a heterogeneous corpus of sources–ranging from Leonardo Borgese’s militant criticism in daily newspapers and the reassuring narratives of popular magazines like «Oggi», to the pedagogical mediation of public television–the study reconstructs the dynamics of symbolic power that transformed an initially delegitimized avant-garde into a normalized mass phenomenon. The analysis highlights how generalist media functioned as "consecration agencies", capable of negotiating the autonomy of the artistic field and reshaping the cultural habitus of the Italian public. The research traces this trajectory from the “scandal” of the 1964 Venice Biennale to the ultimate assimilation of Pop aesthetics into the realms of fashion and advertising, marking a shift toward a visual culture dominated by heteronomous logics.