Artists and the Fear of Pain in a Palliative Society

Christian Caliandro, an art historian and professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, reflects on the contemporary artist's relationship with pain and suffering. Drawing on a Facebook post by Bertram Niessen (October 24, 2022) and Byung-Chul Han's book "La società senza dolore" (Einaudi, 2021), Caliandro argues that today's artists are ill-equipped for cultural struggle. He describes a "palliative society" that eliminates pain in favor of performance and likeability, where suffering is seen as weakness. Artists are caught between two incompatible models: one driven by profit, efficiency, and instant gratification (the "esercenti" model, per Walter Siti), and another rooted in pain, meditation, and anti-efficient digression. Caliandro questions whether artists will embrace likeability or return to a radical, contradictory art. He references Maria Palmieri's work "No Cap Ghetto di Andria" (2022) as an example. The article was published on Artribune in November 2022.