Valentina Tanni's 'Memestetica' Explores Art in the Age of Memes

Art historian and curator Valentina Tanni has published 'Memestetica. Il settembre eterno dell’arte' (Nero Editions, 2020), a study of how the internet and social media have transformed 21st-century contemporary art. The book traces a historical arc 'from Marcel Duchamp to TikTok,' examining how trolls and memes disrupt communication and aesthetics within artistic communities. Tanni argues that images circulated online are subject to compulsive consumption that degrades their value, particularly in photography, fostering skepticism and apathy toward content. She cites photographer Jaime Martinez, who blends photographs with animated GIFs to create a 'scratched record' effect—frozen moments always about to restart. The author declares a surpassing of Nicolas Bourriaud's postproduction practices, as appropriation and copying generate a continuous 'big bang' where distinguishing original from copy becomes impossible. Tanni notes that concepts of originality and creation vanish in a cultural landscape dominated by YouTubers and Instagrammers, whose practices recall historical avant-gardes 'cheerfully distorted in a weird/disturbing key.' The book dissects banal cultural objects on TikTok and memes that inject themselves into the collective imagination. Tanni suggests that while the art market, driven by financial mechanisms, currently seems immune to these aesthetic drifts, the future may differ.