In taking up the demanding challenge of perpetuating and recasting the glories of the historic title FMR, certain decisions struck us as fundamental. Firstly, we must ensure that the texts are of the highest literary standard, looking back to a tradition which, over the years, has welcomed contributions by such all-time-greats as Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, that is, reflecting the more substantial face of modernity, at once cosmopolitan and linked, by a thousand subtle threads, to the very idea of cultural identity and tradition. Secondly, we must use such intellectual contributions as a spur to free-ranging reflection on the very status, and conventions, of what is regarded as art.
Over the years FMR has opened up whole new horizons, ranging from consideration of what have persistently been regarded as the minor arts, to the iconography of science. Furthermore, in those days the area on the map occupied by the uncharted, the little-known and the culturally marginal was large indeed.We intend to continue with this slant, but fine-tuning it according to the current outlines of communication and culture: the Web has changed the very meaning of distance over time, but it has also opened up new vistas for the enquiring mind, and quickened new interests.
Taking as our motto the phrase "sum enim unus ex curiosis", to quote from the Historia Augusta, we shall continue to pay attention to the detail, to the nuance, to all that is slightly off-centre; to what is not necessarily a paradigm, but which, albeit exceptional, nonetheless also bears the hallmark of quality. Lucidly, but also, we hope, with a certain healthy greed, our curiosity will lead us reclaim a practise which, in our opinion, is becoming increasingly rare, namely, the culture of the Dickinsonian "discerning eye", which sets itself in front of the work, of the image, and bids it, beckons it, dares it, to set off anew down any one of the paths of the infinite possible histories of art.
These, then, are the histories of art which FMR hopes scrupulously but passionately to chart The subjects under consideration will not necessarily be new, but they will be looked at in ways that are both extremely old and very new. In this sense we would wish to appropriate Stravinsky´s famous phrase, according to which "you do not have to respect tradition, because you love it".So, FMR will embody a love of art: no more, no less.
