Paola Capata on Painting's Post-Pandemic Revival and Market Dynamics

In a recent article for Artribune, gallerist Paola Capata reflects on the state of painting after the COVID-19 pandemic. Capata, who has directed the Monitor gallery in Rome since 2003, notes that the gallery began focusing on painting in 2013 with the addition of Claudio Verna, following earlier painters Ian Tweedy and Peter Linde Busk. She argues that isolation during 2020 led artists to depict familiar subjects like domestic interiors and still lifes, but did not expand technical practice. Capata observes a renewed attention to figurative imagery, amplified by digital screens, and a market that has made painting the most fetishized medium. She criticizes speculative bubbles driven by finance, where works bought for ten can sell for a million, and calls for more prepared interlocutors to guide acquisition. Despite market excesses, Capata credits painting with opening new mappings of gender and ethnicity in contemporary art. She predicts that future changes in painting will stem from technical, mechanical shifts rather than wars or pandemics. The article includes a dialogue with artist Nicola Samorì and references the gallery's decade-long commitment to painting. Capata concludes that the real world votes for painting.