Italian Fascist Art in Argentina: Margherita Sarfatti and the 1930 Novecento Exhibit in Buenos Aires

In September 1930 an exhibition of the Italian “return-to-order” movement Novecento opened in Buenos Aires. It was not an Italian initiative. Rather, the Buenos Aires- based association Amigos del Arte repeatedly invited fascist art journalist Margherita Sarfatti and artist Ardengo Soffici to visit Argentina and open an exhibition of modern Italian art there. Sarfatti was well-known in Latin America as the author of Mussolini’s biography Dux, while Soffici’s paintings were part of the private collections of many Italian-Argentines. The Novecento exhibit was considered a success by fascist Italian émigrés. However, the propaganda around the exhibition mostly centered on its “Italianness” rather than its “fascism” — even if few days before the show’s inauguration a military coup, led by José Félix Uriburu, established a fascist dictatorship in Argentina. In this paper I will analyze the responses to the Buenos Aires Novecento exhibit both in Argentina and in Italy, contextualizing them within their respective political contexts. While in Argentina the show was seen by Italian emigrants as proof of their nation’s cultural standing, in Italy it was perceived by fascism’s far-right fringes as promoting a decadent view of Italian art. Furthermore, many fascist critics condemned Sarfatti’s influence in shaping Italy’s cultural diplomacy, and suggested that this role should be taken by an elected official rather than a (woman) journalist. I will thus study the Buenos Aires Novecento exhibit as symptomatic of the tensions and challenges of defining a “Fascist art” in Italy, and of exporting it abroad.