Raphael Rubinstein's 'Provisional Painting' Examines Contemporary Art's Failure

Raphael Rubinstein's book 'La pittura provvisoria' (Provisional Painting), published by Johan & Levi in Italian translation in 2025, argues that contemporary painting is inherently uncertain and destined to fail. The essay, originally titled 'The Turn to Provisionality in Contemporary Art,' redefines painting's role in the 21st century by shifting focus from intrinsic value to perpetual change. Rubinstein draws on philosophical and historical references, including correspondence between Samuel Beckett and art historian Georges Duthuit, and applies Gianni Vattimo's 'weak thought' to a postmodern condition centered on the abolition of peremptory truths. The book discusses a group of painters who emerged in the early 2000s, now well-known, and centers on two arguments: distrust of the masterpiece and the failure of painting. Rubinstein posits that painting always points ambiguously to the world, its arbitrary sign system oscillating between resistance to innovation and yielding to expressive urgency. The Italian edition includes a postface by painter Luca Bertolo, who first translated Rubinstein's writings into Italian. Bertolo references Jan Verwoert to raise the issue of contemporaneity's conceptual nature, demanding a decentering from the medium. The book costs €25.00, spans 192 pages, and has ISBN 9788860103567.