Image of Valentina Bartalesi, Ph.D.

Valentina Bartalesi, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Main Focus

  • Methods and Theories in 20th-Century Art Historiography
  • Haptic Perception in Contemporary Art Criticism and Theory
  • Reception of Prehistoric Art  and Material Culture in Euro-American Art Theory
  • Visual Culture Studies

Research Project

Prehistory on Display: Deep Time and the Ideological Making of Fascist Identity through Arts and Visual Culture

Curriculum Vitae

Valentina Bartalesi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, where she is conducting a project focused on the reframing of prehistoric art and material culture under the Fascist regime. She earned her PhD in Visual Arts from IULM University with a dissertation entitled Haptic Feeling: Genealogie tra storia dell’arte, critica e nuovi media, forthcoming with Mimesis in 2026. Since 2021, she has been a member of an interuniversity working group dedicated to the study of prehistoric art and material culture in the twentieth century. Within this framework, she is co-curating the volume Art Before Art | L’arte paleolitica: una questione contemporanea | Paleolithic Art: A Contemporary Issue, scheduled for publication in 2025.

Until June 2024, Valentina held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Archivio del Moderno in Balerna (Università della Svizzera Italiana; Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio) as recipient of the Premio Mendrisio – Prima Edizione, where her research focused on Marco Zanuso’s teaching during the Student Protest at the Politecnico di Milano.

Dr. Bartalesi also serves as Teaching Assistant in History of Art Criticism at IULM University (Milan) and in Visual Culture Studies at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). She has published in academic journals, co-curated an international congress, and presented her work at national and international conferences and workshops.

Go to Editor View