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THE REALRADICAL? ANTONIONEGRI &VERINAGFADER

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Verina Gfader:You were involved in establishingjournals such as 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP, *SHZZL�VWLYHPH,and *VU[YVWPHUV. In what way were the variousformats of distribution – of distributing theoriesand workers’ actions – an integral part of shapingpeople’s actions and engagement? And in whatway did these journals contribute to your thinkingabout radical self-organized forms of resistance?

Antonio Negri: In Italy we experienced the so-called magazines period, which started within the far left wing after the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Hungarian uprising in 1956. In those years, the most frequently used media for distributingtheories and ideas were newspapers andmagazines. Until the mid-’60s our movement was a magazine movement, then we used leafletsas well, which were distributed in factories.

VG: So printed matter became a channel fordistributing theoretical ideas?

AN:Yes, for the left wing of the Communist Party,magazines turned into theoretical magazines –voicing a strong criticism toward the CommunistParty. From a cultural point of view, this period wasvery important and was characterized by theworks of authors like Franco Fortini and RobertoGuiducci. Pier Paolo Pasolini also took part in thismagazine movement until the mid-’60s.

VG: Was the magazine the key trigger?

AN: The magazine became a point of referencewhere the different ways of action and interventionwere analyzed. In this regard, the groupsurrounding 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP, which began to meet in 1958, played a central role. The first issuewas published in 1961. The group was directed and kept together by Raniero Panzieri, who had

Antonio Negri interviewed by Verina Gfader

Translated by Valentina Milan

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8\HKLYUP�YVZZP, no. 2 (1962).Featured in Pier VittorioAureli, ;OL�7YVQLJ[�VM(\[VUVT`!�7VSP[PJZ�HUK(YJOP[LJ[\YL�̂ P[OPU�HUKHNHPUZ[�*HWP[HSPZT (New York: Princeton ArchitecturalPress and the Buell Center,2008), n.p. (c) PrincetonArchitectural Press and theBuell Center.

*SHZZL�VWLYHPH, no. 1 (1964).Featured in Aureli, ;OL7YVQLJ[�VM�(\[VUVT`, n.p. (c) Princeton Architectural Press and the Buell Center.

Covers of course bookletsprepared at the IUAV ( IstitutoUniversitario di Architettura di Venezia) and published by Cluva, 1965. Featured inAureli, ;OL�7YVQLJ[�VM(\[VUVT`, n.p. (c) PrincetonArchitectural Press and theBuell Center.

previously been the director of 4VUKV�VWLYHPV, the official magazine of the Italian Socialist Party.Panzieri belonged to the pro-communist left wingwithin the Italian Socialist Party.

After the Godesberg Program conference in 1959,a group of young people from the left wing of theTurin Socialist Partyand from the youthcommunistsection of the University of Rome converged on acommon project: an inquiry into workers and theirconditions in the factory. Our focus on modes ofproduction and the workday was an attempt torewrite the first volume of Marx’s *HWP[HS in a waythat was specific to the new working conditionsthat were typical of big industry.

VG: Were 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP and other early journalspropositions or theoretical developments? Or werethey both?

AN: They were definitely both. The most importantthing was inquiry – but remember that in Italy in thisperiod sociology was not yet an academic subject.Sociology had been excluded from the universitycurriculum by Italian idealists like Giovanni Gentileand Benedetto Croce. The only sociology chair inthe country was held by Cesare Alfieri in Florence.With 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP came the project ofreinventing sociology; some of those who werecontributing to it, like Franco Momigliano andAlessandro Pizzorno, would later becomeimportant Italian sociologists. In this regard,8\HKLYUP�YVZZP can be compared to the FrankfurtSchool in Germany.

VG: How did Florence emerge as the center of the network between thinkers, workers, andacademics?

AN: In those years the network of universitypolitical centers was fundamental. At the end of

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the war, the Italian industrial area was constitutedby the so-called triangle of Genoa, with iron andsteel, Turin and its automobile industry, and Milanwith its mechanical engineering companies. At thesame time, Venice and Marghera were developinginto the most important centers for the Italianchemical industry. We also have to take intoconsideration the issue of internal migration, ahuge mass of people moving from the south to the north of Italy. It was in response to thesedevelopments that the workers’ movementestablished itself. Between 30 and 40 percent of the workers’ movement was extremely wellorganized – the Italian Communist Party was thebiggest in the communist West and was able toexpress itself both from a political and anintellectual point of view.

I’ve always found it very difficult to explain thedifference between, for example, :VJPHSPZTL�V\)HYIHYPL in France and 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP in Italy withrespect to the workers’ movement. In France,these were mainly minority intellectual movementsconnected with publishing houses – most of theirexponents would become authors, in the truesense of the word. In Italy, the situation wascompletely different because a tension with theparty was immediately visible. 8\HKLYUP�YVZZP wassoon considered a movement. And the movementwas without a doubt made up of intellectuals:Panzieri was an editor for Einaudi, and from 1963 I was a university professor. But at the same timewe were militants – at 5:00 a.m. we’d go to thefactories and help workers write leaflets.

VG: So theory, as such, strongly related to thepractice of the workers in the factories.

AN:Yes – but remember it was a deeply rootedtradition of the Communist Party to take theintellectuals to the factories.We simplycarried it on.

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VG: What status did text and theory have in relationto forming groups and their alliances?

AN: A major element in this context was thetranslation of Marx’s .Y\UKYPZZL. The volume waspublished in Italian for the first time I believe in 1967,but Enzo Grillo, a comrade involved with 8\HKLYUPYVZZP, started to translate the text ten years earlierand Renato Solmi, the translator of WalterBenjamin and Theodor Adorno for Einaudi,translated a few passages from .Y\UKYPZZL for8\HKLYUP�YVZZP – in particular the chapter about the role of the machine.

Look at the Italian editions and at the relationshipwith Germany, for example. From a cultural point of view, this long-standing connection was verystrong. In my heyday it was difficult to become aphilosophy professor without speaking anyGerman – I myself translated Hegel when I wasyoung. An opening was created toward the Anglo-Saxon cultural universe, even though a bit later andmore generally, we were perfectly conscious ofwhat was occurring outside and this is somethingof great importance, because even if we were aclosed community, our level of conceptualization,of thought’s elaboration, was extremely high.Finally, as for our contacts, they were limited, butwe still had some outside of Italy, and thesebecame greater after 1968 in Europe.

With the publication of ,TWPYL with Michael Hardtin 2000 all of the VWLYHPZTV authors’ materialsstarted to be translated and so it has become asubject matter for study. But until then everythinghad been confined to Italy. You have to take intoaccount that the generation responsible for thisprocess was demonized from the mid-’70s onwardand then spent the ’80s in prison.

VG: Although the work of Archizoom and Arte

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Povera, and the important role that magazines like *HZHILSSH played in their development, runsparallel with your activities, why do you seldomcomment on them?

AN: Because there was so little dialogue betweenus.The only interesting thingabout theavant-gardefor me was the opportunity it offered to makesome money – we were asking for paintings fromartists in order to sell them to fund our activities.For example, when I was a militant for Potereoperaio� Mario Schifano, Roberto Matta, and RenéBurri were providing us with paintings to sell.

VG: Was there any dialogue with architecturalgroups like Archizoom who proposed atheoretical –

TN: No. There was a group here in Veneto calledGruppo Enne whose members were ManfredoMassironi, Ennio Chiggio, and Toni Costa. Theywere doing Optical art and Massironi wasresponsible for the visual makeup of the magazine*SHZZL�VWLYHPH between 1964 and 1966/67.Massironi was a good friend of Mario Merz, sobetween Arte Povera and these Optical artists alively debate broke out, eventually leading to abreak because the Optical artists thought that ArtePovera was strongly connected with tradition, withLucio Fontana and Burri, etcetera, while Massironiet al were inquiring into the dynamics of machines.Many exponents of this movement would laterbecome psychologists of perception, and otherswould become designers. Here you can find astrong connection with Archizoom and some otherdesign and architectural groups. For example,Chiggio became the president of the designer’sassociation in Milan at the start of the 1970s.

John Cage frequentlyvisited due to his relationshipwith the pianist and composer Teresa Rampazzi, a

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Opposite:

*VU[YVWPHUV, no. 2 (1971).Featured in Aureli, ;OL7YVQLJ[�VM�(\[VUVT ,̀ n.p. (c) Princeton ArchitecturalPress and the Buell Center.

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comrade in our groups. There was also a musicalmodernism developing: Bruno Maderna andLuciano Berio were more or less originally fromVeneto. So although we did not deal directly in art, we were living in art. As a result, the protestsagainst the Biennale in 1968 were huge.

VG: Didn’t you boycott it?

TN:Yes, in an extremely tough way, and it wasreally interesting because many of the universitydepartments took part in it. Architecture studentshad begun a self-management process supportedby professors in 1964/65, and in 1967 an“occupation” took place, lasting twelve months.Following this occupation by the school ofarchitecture, the other academies started comingtogether. Then Marghera workers arrived as well,because in those years workers from Margherawould hold their assemblies during the lockoutsinside the school of architecture.

VG: But wasn’t there a one-year strike at the Veniceacademy as well?

AN: It was prompted by the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, but it was not a strike; itwas an occupation mainly with the support of theprofessors. The rector at that time was GiuseppeSamonà and then there was Franco Albini, afamous furniture designer, the architect IgnazioGardella, and a number of town planners who alltook part.

These different developments all ran more or lessparallel with each other, crossing over at certainpoints. These movements developing onhorizontal axes were living in the same theoreticalenvironment rather than creating a precise,determined theory, because the movements’thoughts tended to be negative and critical –

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endlessly creating new spaces rather than filling them.

Aside from this, some militants were indeed doingart and cinema here in Venice. For instance, therewas the guy who shoots pornographic films –what’s his name?

VG: Tinto Brass?

AN: Tinto Brass! He made a marvelous film at the time shot at the Lido in Venice, *OP�SH]VYH�u�WLYK\[V. But Italy lacked a cinema preparing for and living 1968; there was no Godard.

VG: No Godard?

AN: No, not at all. Well, there was Pasolini, but hewas quite a different thing.

VG: In what ways? How do you see Pasolini’s place within that, and in relation to your work atthat time?

AN: There was a violent break with Pasolini.Alberto Asor Rosa wrote the book :JYP[[VYP�LWVWVSV in 1965, and he attacked the whole ofrealism, all that was called Italian communistrealism; he described Pasolini as a middle-classwriter who succeeded Giovanni Pascoli. So, a veryviolent break occurred between the VWLYHPZ[P andPasolini and the reason is apparent: according tothe VWLYHPZ[P�the subject of history was the productive working class; according to Pasolini, on the contrary, history belonged to thefarmworkers, the simple, common people, theimmigrant with strong muscles – there is nothing todo here, the difference between these twopositions concerned the way of conceiving thingsand therefore the gap was too big to be filled.Besides, in 1968 Pasolini wrote a famous poem

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against the students who had taken part in thestruggles at Valle Giulia, which had represented a very powerful action.

The break was total and as far as I am concerned it is still valid today. Even though I believe thatPasolini’s work has effectively documented a greatpassage in Italian history, it is still too nostalgic and passive.

VG: In 4\S[P[\KL!�>HY�HUK�+LTVJYHJ`�PU�[OL�(NL�VM�,TWPYL, you mention the White Overalls withreference to Italian social centers – includingbookstores, radio stations, and lectures – as being essentially political throughout the 1970s. Again thinking more broadly, there was also theflourishing club scene and immersive soundenvironments and meeting places built aroundarchitectural experiments from 1968 to 1976. With the Florentine avant-garde architecturalmovement Gruppo 9999, who designed the clubSpace Electronic, an alternative social space wascreated – generating a series of small communitiesin communal spaces, even going so far as toinclude school activities. Could this possibly beseen as an alternative form of protest or resistanceon the basis of the inclusion of workers, the youth,the people?

AN: The social centers in Italy have very differenthistories. They were founded in the 1970s as whatwere called “proletarian youth centers.” Theybegan by organizing these big parties like, forexample, the one at Parco Lambro in Milan, whichwas particularly important. At the same time, thefirst independent radios were established: RadioAlice in Bologna, Radio Sherwood in Padua, RadioBlackout in Milan, Radio Onda Rossa in Rome. This period was undoubtedly very strange. Forexample, in Milan, where I was living in the 1970s,there was a social center in the Ticinese

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A crowd gathered for ademonstration. Photo byMarion Scemama.

Protesters brandishing aPotere Operaio banner.

Potere operaio protesters in action, November 18, 1972.Photo by Massa Carrara.

Featured in Sylvère Lotringerand Christian Marazzi, eds., (\[VUVTPH!�7VZ[�7VSP[PJHS�7VSP[PJZ (New York:Semiotext(e), 1980).(c) Semiotext(e).

neighborhood. The people involved in thatundertook an actual territorial occupation from1974 until 1977/78. Today this area is called TV]PKHdue to it being a center for nightlife, but at that timeit had nothing to do with TV]PKH because it took itsorigins from proletarians. Social centers werespaces for workers with very cheap restaurants.Police could not enter in these areas.

VG: Was there a barricade?

AN: No, if a police car went in, it was stopped and itwas burned. A fundamental feature to bear in mindis that 1968 in Italy was not the same as in Germanyor in France: in Italy it lasted ten years.

VG: So it’s more like an ongoing ten-year event.

AN:Yes, ten years during which every kind of eventhappened, especially in the big cities – Rome,Milan, in Veneto, too. Veneto played an importantrole with respect to the working class, even ifVeneto was not a workers’ region like Turin. InRome the situation was similar. But Milan wasundoubtedly the place where everythinghappened. In Rome things happen in a folkloristicway, whereas in Milan things happen in a real way.

During this period, industry began itstransformation as automation processes wereimplemented and work began to move from thefactory into the city. The publishing industry, forinstance, would no longer be a tower containingthousands of workers. The development of Milanas a center for design happened when designersmoved outside of the large companies into the city to develop their own practices. Milan becamea productive metropolis and we experienced the passage from the “mass worker” through the “social worker” to the “cognitive worker.” Architecture departments started to occupy a

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central place from a political point of view – look at the Politecnico in Milan.

VG: In terms of architecture, was the design of thefactories–and theorganizationofspace generally–taken as an important factor at the time?

AN: Definitely. In particular, we were talking aboutthe traffic in the city. When I lived here in Venice inthe mid-’60s there was a focus in the architectureschool on standardization and the design ofprefabricated proletarian houses for the workingclass. At the end of the decade the focus switchedfrom the house to the city structure and thecreation of spaces to freely move around and meetin. These spaces formed a continuum between the industrial outskirts and the city center.

VG: Looking at these various so-called radicalmovements and practices across art, design, andarchitecture, do you even see true radicality asbeing heightened in this period? Or do you feel thatArte Povera and Archizoom and the like were tooorthodox to be true radicals?

AN: We should try to understand what trueradicality is. In Italy, radicality was the BrigateRosse, and they certainly had very little in commonwith Arte Povera. There are, let’s say, differentkinds of radicality. Arte Povera, which was a very important phenomenon, was strictlyconnected to a negative and ironical vision ofreality, becoming poetic precisely because of this dimension. But Arte Povera was not reality.From this point of view, I prefer the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s, which directly intervened ineveryday reality.

I’m now trying to reconstruct the ten years after1968 in Italy that we spoke of earlier, which isdifficult because my archive disappeared when

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I was imprisoned – one of the reasons why I agreedto give this interview is that it helps me remember.