Provocation, fracture and access: a fertile contradiction in contemporary art

Caterina Mainardis responds to Stefano Monti's article on the crisis of provocation in contemporary art, arguing that shock no longer generates thought in a saturated context. She acknowledges the historical value of the avant-garde's fracture from elitist art, from Dadaism onward, which reconnected art with life and historical trauma. However, she warns against nostalgia for a more complex, inaccessible art. Mainardis distinguishes between art that excludes and art that assumes relational responsibility. She contends that contemporary art often demands expertise and references without offering an experience that precedes understanding. The real question, she suggests, is not whether art should break, but what happens after the break: if fracture does not produce space, relation, or transformation, it risks becoming empty. Conversely, complexity without access becomes a new enclosure. She advocates for lateral movement toward practices that maintain depth while circulating it, that do not fear thought but do not use it as a device of exclusion. The piece appears on Artribune, an Italian art publication, and is part of a series of newsletters including Incanti (art market), Render (urban regeneration), and PAX (cultural tourism).