Tenley Bick, PhD (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History at Florida State University and was the 2019-2020 Scholar in Residence at Magazzino Italian Art. She is an art historian of global postwar and contemporary art, with focuses on European (especially Italian) and African art (continental and diasporic), with interest in the history of Italian colonialism. Her work on Italian art focuses on Arte Povera, internationalism, and politics in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as contemporary art, race politics, and postcoloniality. Her current book project, Where There’s Everything: Michelangelo Pistoletto and World-Building in Arte Povera, examines the work of the contemporary Italian artist within the politicized cultural contexts of post-WWII Italy and Europe, and against the broader geopolitical horizon for art of the 1960s. Her research also includes a second book-length project in development on contemporary art and Italian colonial history.

Her writings have been published in a range of scholarly journals, including Third Text, African Arts, and in the volume Theorizing Visual Studies: Writing Through the Discipline (eds. Elkins and McGuire, et al). She has recently addressed debates in contemporary art, race politics, and activism in Italy in “‘My world now is black in color’: Pandemic-Era Programming, Anti-Racist Activism, and Contemporary Art in Italy,” CAA International News (August 11, 2020).Forthcoming publications include “Ghosts for the Present: Countercultural Aesthetics and Postcoloniality for Contemporary Italy. The Work of Wu Ming 2 and Fare Ala," in Global Revolutionary Aesthetics and Politics after Paris '68 (eds. W. Cloonan, B. Faulk, M. Munro, and C. Weber; Lexington Books, 2021, out Feb. 15), and "Bochner's Italian Picture" in the exhibition catalog associated with Bochner Boetti Fontana (curated by Mel Bochner and Magazzino Italian Art) at Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring, NY, October 2, 2020–April 5, 2021). She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Website: www.tenleybick.com