Johan & Levi: non solo Saggi

In our age, marked by growing anxiety over a world that is disappearing and by the sense of living in a state of permanent crisis, ecology represents a frontier of possibility, drawing on intelligence, attentiveness, care and creativity. The term, initially technical and academic, has now become ‘branched out’, coming to encompass movements of resistance and regeneration.Filipa Ramos, tracing the history of the divide between humanity and the environment, tells us of artists who have centred their work on ecological issues, offering transformative proposals. Before them, in the 1960s, a number of pioneers – Joseph Beuys, Nancy Holt, Ana Mendieta, Joan Jonas – used various artistic languages to raise public awareness, anticipating the most recent generations.In these pages we read of attempts to interact with seal pups, of spiders displayed in a museum as masterpieces, of the revival of pastoral traditions and of river journeys to rediscover forgotten sounds. We learn to respect the enigmatic nature of certain peoples, that right to privacy all too often violated by the colonial gaze. And above all, we learn to move beyond our outrage at the state to which we have reduced our planet and to start afresh with those – such as Britta Marakatt-Labba, Tomás Saraceno, Eduardo Navarro, Pierre Huyghe or Tabita Rezaire – who are at the forefront of the fight against the devastation of the Earth.

The future of the public museum has never seemed more at risk: rather than representing the diverse interests of society as a whole, in most cases it has been reduced to a vehicle for promoting block-buster events and protecting the privileges of private concerns, giving rise to temples of amusement and entertainment that are unable to grasp the actual historic moment in its entirety. Apart, that is, from the odd happy but rare exception. In this short essay, Claire Bishop talks about the experience of three European institutions of contemporary art – the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid and the MSUM in Ljubljana – which have dealt with the challenge of cuts to public funding dictated by austerity measures by making a virtue of necessity and developing brilliant alternatives to the dominant mantra of “bigger and better, and, if possible, also more profitable”. Through enlightened policies regarding the acquisition of new work and the display of their own permanent collection, these museums have turned themselves into places dedicated to experimentation, capable of using their own resources to put together a critical discourse and cast a political eye on the current period in history.In re-opening discussion of a heated international debate, Museologia Radicale outlines a manifesto for a new concept of contemporary, which should be seen as a practice and not merely as periodization, favouring a reinterpretation of the museum’s role as an institution charged with preserving cultural heritage, at the same time providing a critical voice that can interrogate the present and contribute to creating a different future.

Italy’s historical and artistic heritage has a problem so glaring and obvious that we end up not even noticing it: it fails to speak to those who visit it. With a few fortunate exceptions, our museums do little to help visitors understand and appreciate their collections, archaeological parks their ruins, or monuments our past. For seven out of ten Italians who never set foot in them, art and the past are nothing but a bore. Meanwhile, the others, who flock mainly to the most famous sites, often return home with a vague and fleeting sense of wonder, without anything new having been kindled within them.The reason why our cultural heritage does not speak to us, like Michelangelo’s Moses in the legend, is simple: it can almost never do so on its own. And until recently, we have not bothered to give it a voice. So today we are among the best at studying, protecting and restoring, but we have not yet learnt to ‘interpret’, and thus to offer the public new knowledge, curiosity and emotions. To spark their imagination. To make them want to see and know more.Giovanni Carrada proposes using this book as a starting point to begin building a new skill set—essential for those working in the world of cultural heritage—if not a new profession altogether. Because promotion—the real kind—is not measured in euros or tickets sold, but in the number of people enriched by the experience they have had.

It was the year 1993 when Dave Hickey, the enfant terrible of art criticism, galvanised by the controversy surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe's Portfolio X exhibition, decided to launch a ferocious attack against the academic establishment by dragging a bygone theme into the spotlight: beauty.Demonised and accused of connivance with the logic of the market, the latter had long since wandered like a spectre through the ruins of the aesthetic debate, sowing embarrassment within the new ‘therapeutic’ institutions - museums, galleries and the entire art system. Like priests of a mystery cult, following the dogmas of Greenberg and Barr, the professors had mystified artistic practice with lofty theoretical disquisitions, underpinned by a corrosive distrust of all that was loveliness and seduction, ‘beauty’ in fact.In these four essays - more like a manifesto than a polite discussion - the Texan critic aims straight at the target and recalls how over the centuries authors such as Raphael, Caravaggio and Warhol have exploited pure form to establish an immediate relationship between the observer and the content of their images, in a democratic and liberating process.Thirty years after its first publication in the United States, the dragon evoked by Hickey once again spreads its wings and pours forth, sparing no-one, its fiery, provocative and unfiltered prose. Completely indifferent to the antipathies it may arouse.

Established in 1895, the Venice Biennale is not only the oldest international art exhibition, but also the most eagerly awaited event. A coveted destination for every artist and curator, it has always imposed itself as a mirror of the contemporary and, at the same time, its subversion. This is well known by Massimiliano Gioni who, well before he was the youngest to lead the lagoon kermesse, every two years interviewed the Biennale's directors, meeting them at Caffè Paradiso, the historic café at the entrance to its Giardini.Through recollections, anecdotes and confessions, Gioni recounts a 30-year history from the point of view of those who conquered the Biennale and experienced it first-hand. He recounts the challenges common to all - the struggle against time and a budget that is never enough - and those specific to each, such as the choice of artists or the difficulties at the time of the Covid epidemic; the inspirations drawn from his own, or others', experience; the various attempts to establish a dialogue between present, past and future; the desire to break down traditions and bring a new vision of curating as well as of the Biennale itself. But most of all, what emerges from these conversations is the unmistakable imprint that each of them has left on their edition.Like snow crystals, in their complex and ever-changing weave, in the same way each Biennale is a universe of its own to which each director has wanted to do justice, thus describing an ever-changing world.

Class of '92, artist and sex worker Sophia Giovannitti tells it like it is. She proudly signs her name both in artistic performances and when meeting clients. She does not hide behind a puritanical sense of guilt: free of prejudice, she does not allow anyone to degrade her for the way she has chosen to live.Inhabiting a world where capitalism has ended up commodifying not only our free time, but also those activities that have always been considered intimate and sacred, namely art and sex, has made it possible for someone to make money from both, creating a short circuit for which, despite fully participating in the system, one is still mercilessly stigmatised. We are all bent to the market logic that controls every aspect of our lives, and yet there are those who have raised their heads, those who, from the margins, exploit this very mechanism to reclaim their space, whether in the gallery or in the bedroom, and remain uncomfortable to the hypocritical and well-considered world. Sophia then continues on her way, the best that allows her to pursue what she loves and also profit from it. In an ironic 'confessional' style, she lays bare her occupations, giving them extreme seriousness and legitimacy. Rough, brash, provocative, capable of quoting The Sopranos and Foucault in a loose and self-conscious manner, Sophia Giovannitti writes a book that is more than contemporary: a necessary reflection on the markets of art, work and sex as they were, as they are and as one dreams they will be tomorrow.

For decades, the issue of cultural property illegally removed from its original context has fuelled global debate, which has heated up since public opinion turned the spotlight on prestigious Western collections holding treasures from countries that now claim ownership. Alexander Herman gives us a wide-ranging and up-to-date overview of the most controversial cases, such as the ongoing dispute over the Parthenon marbles or the partial repatriation of the Benin bronzes, not to mention the objects stolen from the Summer Palace in Beijing and paintings requisitioned by the Nazis. Restitution is more complex than it seems, not only because it forces us to come to terms with the abuses perpetrated by our forebears, but also because applying a contemporary idea of justice to instances of the past can have an unforeseen cost. It is now deemed unacceptable for symbols of a religious cult wrested from indigenous communities to be on display in the museums of the “predators”. But in many cases these are artifacts that have been part of their collections for centuries; indeed, some of them have acquired an enormous cultural, and even financial value for the institutions that house them, and they may be unwilling to give them up. While deliberating on how restitutions can be negotiated, this volume also questions the paradigm shift we have entered into: our obsession with rectifying past injustices could have an irreversible impact on the cultural sector for years to come.

A sense of euphoria and invigorating plenty pervade the world of Jeff Koons and his body of work addressing the allure of mass-consumer goods, banal objects whose almost erotic enticement is further heightened by his use of mirror-like materials that turn the pieces into voluptuous temptresses who seek to seduce viewers by getting them to heed the same siren song which they themselves purvey.As brilliant and intense as his sculptures, Koons talks about himself and his work during these conversations with Massimiliano Gioni, held between 2018 and 2021. The interviewer’s critical insight prompts the artist to review key chapters of his past, from his childhood in Pennsylvania to his encounter with Duchamp, from his travels in Italy in search of the most skilled ceramics craftsmen to his recent commissions in Paris and Qatar. The underlying philosophy to art, which combines avant-garde tradition with an outlook of openness and acceptance of the world at large, is laid bare. Embracing a typically American form of eccentricity, Koons accepts his own history, taste and desires, even. His freedom from any distinction between high and low culture allows him to draw with equal ease from both home appliance stores and Italian renaissance art, with which he has always dealt on an equal footing. In total freedom.

A virus has been spreading through the art world for some time now: the politically correct. Shaped like a tyrannical and moralistic power, it takes root at biennials, festivals and cultural events increasingly devoted to anti-globalist, environmentalist and feminist themes. Such militant art is shadowed by new forms of censorship of artistic output deemed to be offensive to public morality. The petition to remove Balthus’ painting Thérèse rêvant from a museum’s walls and the addition of cover-up banners on Egon Schiele’s nudes in the subway are but the most sensational cases. Having abandoned all provocative and subversive ambition, art today has become the banner of social struggles, while artists allow themselves to be cotton-woolled in do-gooder critique. Often lacking specific skills, artists willingly don the garments of the archivist, historian or activist to make projects that leave ample space for documents, testimonies and densely didactic and sententious scaffolding. But if the intrinsic value of the work takes second place to the content and cause it promotes, what about the strength and autonomy that Modernity assigned to it? The thing that is endangered, in truth, is not only the notion of art: the very idea of ethics is paradoxically fragmented into myriad categories – as many as there are claims to identity – potentially in conflict with one another. In this short and highly polemical non-fiction work, Talon-Hugon retraces the stages of the delicate relationship between art and ethics, comparing them with what is happening today: censorship is being exercised not for the good of humanity as a whole but for the benefit of individual categories or communities, to the detriment of artists and their modus vivendi.

Lack of culture, finance, and globalization are rapidly driving the languages of art into a cul-de-sac. The definitive decline of the avant-garde movements and the erosion of the intellectual power that had supported them, along with the image of art as a status symbol, have fostered the rise of a type of art collecting which, devoid of sufficient knowledge of the object of its desire, has nonetheless imposed new rules of the game and provoked a radical standardization of taste. At one time, collecting – that tangible fruit of developed taste, its material visualization – was the prerogative of a cultured, charismatic aristocracy, capable of bringing legitimacy and authority to the battle of ideas; today, on the contrary, it is mostly seeking consensus while treating art objects like mass-produced souvenirs that should be as recognizable as an image of the Eiffel Tower, familiar even to those who have never been to Paris. Guided by conformity and armed with massive sums of capital, collectors choose trophy-works with the sole aim of confirming that they belong not in an elite of knowledgeable art lovers but in the club of the wealthy. For their part, artists offer no resistance to this standardizing arrangement, having lost the antagonistic role that once sheltered them from the whims of fashion. They are now forced to chase after economic success and produce “obedient” art, respectful of the dictates of marketing and globalized taste, at the expense of the autonomy that had been their most prized and powerful quality until only a few decades ago. This lively essay, scathingly controversial even in its title, analyzes changes in the spirit of the times, in taste in collecting, in the system by which art is disseminated and ultimately in art itself, reflecting the changes over the last thirty-five years in society, geo-politics and the economy.  

Since 2005, the proceeds from sales in the art market have almost doubled, surpassing 60 billion dollars yearly. Art fairs and events have proliferated like mushrooms; auctions reach dizzying figures and the overall demand for artwork has increased exponentially. And yet, this peculiar gold rush is only part of the story. Looking more closely, behind the slick vernissages in museums and galleries, behind Christie’s and Sotheby’s glorious records and ever-changing leadership, lies a much darker side. In fact, the legacy of this boom has been a rapid increase in the concentration of power in the hands of a few mega-players who can singlehandedly determine the price – and thus the value – of an artwork. This concentration has had many repercussions: artists are branded like merchandise; art is increasingly treated as a nothing more than an investment; fraud and the circulation of forgeries are on the rise; the temptation to avoid or falsify tax records has intensified and methods of art production and sales have changed. In recent years, Georgina Adam, astute contributor to the most influential art magazines, has been gathering interviews, statements and testimonies from leading figures in the art system, confronting shady intrigues and scandalous backstories of the often opaque and always poorly regulated art market. With discrete irony, Adam explains the notorious auctions of works by Picasso, Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, as well as the financial dealings of luxury tycoons and nouveaux riches Asians. With a genuine outsider’s view, she follows the most incredible intrigues and legal proceedings of the art market, where – as one might expect – all that glitters is not gold.

Contemporary churches often resemble industrial warehouses, swimming pools, bars or garages. They almost never have a façade, and bell towers are a distant memory. Inside, they are disorienting and sterile, like waiting rooms, and instead of a dome there is a ceiling that brings to mind not God but the tenant upstairs. The rose windows have been replaced by skylights, and the sacred images by bland works of abstract art that evoke a vague spirituality devoid of transcendence; in homage to minimalism, the altars look as though they have come straight out of an Ikea catalogue. The horror of these new places of worship is the price the Church pays for modernity: after the Second Vatican Council, it abandoned traditional forms, preferring the most daring architectural extravagances or, worse still, eagerly submitting to the bureaucracy of planning committees.And yet, new, grandiose cathedrals are springing up everywhere: these are the museums, designed by celebrated starchitects, driving forces of tourism and billion-pound investments, places no longer intended to preserve memories but to serve as luxurious packaging for contemporary art, themselves works of art, icons, places where culture becomes religion. Hordes of the faithful set off on pilgrimage: just as they once went to Chartres, they now head to the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the Tate Modern in London to worship the idols and relics of the contemporary age.In an amusing and amused manner, Angelo Crespi surveys these ugly churches, relating them to the guidelines of the Italian Episcopal Conference, which offers architects a comical little handbook born not of faith but of a sort of post-conciliar pauperistic moralism; on the other hand, he rails against the designs of deconstructivist museums—enormous alien spaceships made of glass, iron and concrete—which increasingly dominate the urban landscape, serving as entertainment factories and mills of meaning and consensus.