Sport, Body and Race in Fascist Visual Culture 

The Max Planck Partner Group „Sport, Body and Race in Fascist Visual Culture“ aims at investigating how images, objects, works of art, and architectural spaces dedicated to sport played a pivotal role in shaping the imagery of the athletic body, which was intertwined with the fascist regime’s hygienic and racial propaganda. 
Developed over five years, the Group will foster a partnership between the Centre Lucien Febvre of the Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, in Besançon, which specializes in fascist sport studies, and the research unit Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture, from Nation Building to Now of the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, merging the perspectives of both historians and art historians. With scientific events and publications, the project intends to explore the artistic and visual strategies employed to construct an idealized athletic body that epitomized the “Italianness” promoted by the fascist regime. While there is an effort to establish an Italian bodily ideal as a symbol of health and power, the bodies of Black athletes simultaneously become the focus of intense scrutiny. Black bodies were visually present in the fascist sports press, which was captivated by the achievements of African-American champions. Paintings and sculptures depicting Black athletes also played a key role in major sports exhibitions, while numerous illustrations in sports magazines, as well as sports-themed propaganda movies contributed to the shaping of racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes. Moreover, the issues of race, Blackness, and its representations are intrinsically linked to Italy’s colonial history. Therefore, it will be important to explore the use and instrumentalization of images, the involvement of artists and photographers in documenting and representing sporting events, organizing the staging of parades and choreographies produced in a colonial context, as well as the role of colonial cinema. Although primarily focused on fascist Italy, the project may ultimately enable a broader reflection on the current visual culture of sport in Italy, which is often shaped by violent and racist manifestations of masculinity and supremacy, and has yet to fully come to terms with the difficult legacy of the Ventennio.