Raffaella Arpiani's 'Non ci capisco un Picasso' Demystifies Avant-Garde Art

Raffaella Arpiani's new book 'Non ci capisco un Picasso' (Feltrinelli) aims to dismantle the common feeling of inadequacy before modern art. The volume covers 20th-century avant-garde movements, featuring artists such as Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, René Magritte, Hannah Höch, and Henri Matisse. Arpiani employs a direct, narrative style, blending biographical episodes, artwork descriptions, and personal reflections to make art accessible without oversimplification. The book was released on April 14, coinciding with her late father's birthday, a date she connects to Munch's story. In an interview, Arpiani discusses the importance of simple language, the difficulty for women in avant-garde circles (noting Höch's marginalization in the Berlin Dada group), and her skepticism about contemporary avant-gardes, which she sees as often spectacle-driven and 'instagrammable' rather than disruptive. She emphasizes that avant-garde artists were once young and insecure, creating a parallel with today's youth. The book's key lesson, she says, is to have the courage to experiment and persist despite criticism, and to recover a sense of community.