Il primo viaggio di Pietro Maria Bardi in America del Sud: la mostra dell’architettura italiana a Buenos Aires

When Pietro Maria Bardi (1900-1999) arrived to Rio de Janeiro on the motor ship “Oceania” – on November 30th, 1933 – he was a successful journalist, critic and art dealer with a significant role in the Fascist art system. He brought with him a group of photomontaged plates dedicated to the most radical trends of the modern Italian architecture that to be had exposed in a travelling exhibit, which from Buenos Aires should have reached Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. On arrival in Argentina, Bardi acquired a popular following, recorded on time by newspapers and magazines; He was welcomed by an avant-garde painter Emilio Pettoruti and by the president of Societá Central de Arquitetos. On December 19th, the exhibition opened at Instituto Argentino de Bellas Artes in the presence of the President of the Republic, general Agustin P. Justo. The event combined the promotion of Italian Modern Architecture and the expansion of the Regime, through social boundaries of culture; in effect the initiative was sponsored by Pietro Parini, Minister and President of Italiani all'estero. The chronicle of that journey is reported on the manuscript “Amer”, an unpublished notebook that gathers drawings, writings and press cuttings, showing Bardi’s first contacts with the South American milieu. That experience was of considerable importance in the perspective of the promotion of Italian Modernism and the Fascist political practices. The trip had also the aims of making sales of Italian ancient art, so that it could reach the south American art market.