Christian Caliandro challenges Hobsbawm's 'short century' thesis through art and music of the 1990s

In an article for Artribune, art historian Christian Caliandro questions Eric Hobsbawm's concept of the 'short twentieth century,' arguing that the transition from the 20th to the 21st century was not abrupt but extended over two decades. He posits that cultural and structural characteristics of the 1900s persisted into the new century, delaying the emergence of a distinct contemporary identity. Caliandro identifies the 1990s to mid-2010s as a period where contemporary art remained anchored in post-conceptual and post-Povera languages, reflecting nostalgia for the 1960s-70s. Artists emerged as individual figures rather than group members, and theoretical discourse waned. Over the last 10-15 years, this has shifted: painting has returned strongly, along with manual/artisanal practices tied to identity, 'artivism,' and relational art. Caliandro draws parallels with music, citing the experimental phase of the mid-1990s to early 2000s—bands like Radiohead, Björk, and Smashing Pumpkins—as a brief era of mass experimentation that has since dissipated. He suggests that contemporary art serves as a privileged observatory for understanding this prolonged interregnum.