Mario Costa's antisemitic pamphlet claims contemporary art is a Jewish conspiracy

In his book "Ebraismo e arte contemporanea" (Mimesis, 2020), Italian academic Mario Costa argues that contemporary art was radically determined by the Mosaic prohibition of images. According to Costa, the entire history of contemporary art—from Abstract Expressionism and Dada to Conceptual Art, Arte Povera, and relational art—is a product of Judaism, orchestrated by figures like Isidore Isou and supported by the CIA and Jewish-American networks. He dismisses artists like Francis Bacon as irrelevant. Costa claims that technology, via Walter Benjamin's essay and the 1970 exhibition "Software" at the Jewish Museum in New York, became a tool for Jewish orthodoxy. The book is published in Mimesis's peer-reviewed series "Eterotopie," raising questions about its editorial oversight. The review criticizes Costa's conspiracy theories, racial profiling, and poor scholarship, noting errors like "Derridà" and "Chagal."