Neovernacular Art as Anti-Rebellion: A Critique of Art World Elitism

In a 2019 essay on Artribune, Christian Caliandro explores neovernacular art as an anti-rebellious stance against the contemporary art system. He cites Tommaso Fiore's 1925 description of a peasant house in Alberobello, Puglia, emphasizing simplicity, authenticity, and proportion as vernacular values. Caliandro draws a parallel to Goffredo Parise's 1982 'L'eleganza è frigida' and invokes David Foster Wallace's 1993 essay 'E Unibus Pluram', where Wallace predicts that future literary rebels will be 'anti-rebels' who reject irony and embrace sincerity, even at the cost of appearing outdated. Caliandro argues that neovernacular art is immediate, comprehensible, and sophisticated in a rustic way, yet brutal and rude—not subject to elite conventions. He critiques the art world's separation between insiders who accept no criticism and outsiders who criticize acritically, mirroring a broader societal divide between elite and common people. The essay includes an image of Laura Cionci's 2018 sculpture 'Venere di Utica' made from fossil, wood, and brass. Caliandro calls for a sincere, unpretentious approach to bridge art and reality, avoiding clichés even if perceived as retrograde or naive.