Luca Beatrice's Posthumous Book 'La commedia dell'arte' Released

Marsilio has published 'La commedia dell'arte', the final book by Luca Beatrice, the Italian art critic who died on January 21, 2025 in Turin. The 160-page volume, priced at €16, blends high and popular culture, structured as episodic chapters with masks and paradoxes. Beatrice, a militant critic, curator, and teacher, defends the value of the art object against ephemeral trends, critiquing museums as experience containers and street art as gentrification tool. He references artists from Cattelan to Banksy, and events like the Venice Biennale and Documenta. The book examines the curator's evolution from scholar to ideological director, the loss of provocative meaning, and art's social and cultural role. It is not nostalgic but critically assesses contemporary art's direction.