Richard Demarco: The Italian Connection

Since the 1960s Richard Demarco has had a pivotal role in the production and promotion of the visual and performing arts in Scotland. The Italo-Scottish artist, cultural entrepreneur and educator has organised and fostered cultural exchanges and collaborations throughout Europe and has been a champion of European culture and the avant-garde in Scotland. Although some research and publications have been devoted to Demarco's endeavours, little is known of the numerous cultural exchanges and collaborations between Italy and Scotland that he initiated and developed in the past fifty years. This gap in the historical canon of knowledge is extraordinary because in the Demarco's archives - a portion of which is at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (SNGMA, (representing activities from 1963 to 1995) and a portion at the Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh - are many traces of exchanges between Italy and Scotland promoted by Demarco as part of his larger European network and contribution to the Edinburgh Festival. These documents include photographs, ephemera, notes, catalogues and artworks that feature events involving relevant Italian or Italian-based artists, producers, performers, directors, critics including: Palma Bucarelli, the Count Panza di Biumo, Giulio Paolini, Jannis Kounellis, Bruno Ceccobelli, Toti Scialoja, Carlo Quartucci and Carla Tatò, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Merz, Fabrizio Plessi, Achille Bonito Oliva, Maria Gloria Conti Bicocchi, Giuseppe Chiari, Guido Sartorelli. This publication is the main outcome of the eponymous research project, Richard Demarco The Italian Connection and uncovers and retraces many stories and reassesses how Demarco promoted Italian visual and performing arts in Scotland and Scottish art in the Italian cultural context.

Laura Leuzzi is an art historian and curator. She was Post-Doc Researcher on the AHRC funded research projects REWINDItalia Artists' Video in Italy in 70s and 80s and on the AHRC funded research project 'EWVA - European Women's Video Art in the 70s and 80s', both at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee. Currently she is Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded research project 'Richard Demarco. The Italian Connection' at DJCAD. Stephen Partridge is an artist, academic researcher and the principal investigator on the AHRC funded research projects: Rewind Artists' Video in the 70s and 80s; REWINDItalia Artists' Video in Italy in 70s and 80s; and Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded research projects EWVA – European Women's Video Art in the 70s and 80s and Richard Demarco The Italian Connection. His video work has been exhibited extensively since 1974 and his seminal work Monitor (1974), was acquired by TATE in 2016. Professor Elaine Shemilt is an academic, researcher, practicing artist and was the Chair of Fine Art Printmaking at DJCAD, University of Dundee (2001–2021). Elaine is especially known as a printmaker and was a pioneer of early feminist video and multi-media installation. She continues to address the impact of war, conflict, censorship and constraint on psychologies and environments in her work. She is P.I. on the AHRC-funded research projects: EWVA, investigating early video art by European women artists; and Demarco the Italian Connection. She is the Director of the Centre for Remote Environments – a research and consultancy unit for environmental projects, mainly concerned with the Island of South Georgia for which she was made a Shackleton Scholar in 2001.