Roberto Diodato on Art, Truth, and Relational Aesthetics in New Book

Philosopher Roberto Diodato, professor of Aesthetics at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and director of CREA, discusses his latest book 'Verità dell'arte. Percorsi' (Morcelliana, 2025). In an interview with Davide Dal Sasso, Diodato argues that artworks are not static objects but events of relation, existing only as they occur in relational fields. He cites the handprints of Altamira as an example of singular-collective origin. Diodato critiques 'capitalismo seduttivo' (seductive capitalism), which he says anesthetizes aisthesis and destroys freedom while appearing to enhance it. He positions aesthetic-artistic experience as a political hope that disrupts perceptual clichés. The book traces two 19th-century philosophical paths on truth: one from Hegel and Schopenhauer, another from Vico and Schelling. Diodato emphasizes that art is not fiction but 'dizione' (saying) of truth, and that in the age of generative AI, art remains an irreducible excess within deterministic processes.