Luigi Caramiello

Abstract

Avant-garde is a plural phenomenon with such complex cultural and ideologic implications. The category has assumed peculiar meanings in the expressive and aesthetic area of interest, in a modern and contemporary dimension. The evolution of art, before and after the historical avant-gardes, has always been connected with the intensity of the technologic processing and social changes. Gradually, the artist has been able to untie both the political and ideological heavy bonds with the institutional ruling class, creating without restraints a product for the market. Unfortunately, for some of the current avant-garde expressions, the preponderance of the performative choice, the happening option, giving up the material configuration of the manufactured article, product, good, of the artistic creation, seems to prefigure a condition in which art could be once again subordinated  by power.

Luigi Caramiello (Napoli 1957) is researcher of sociology and teaches sociology of art and litterature at Università di Napoli «Federico II». Among his publications Il Medium nucleare, Edizioni Lavoro, Roma 1987; Da amore a Zapping, Pironti, Napoli 1995; La natura tecnologica, Curto, Napoli 1996; La droga della modernità, utet, Torino 2003; La gioventù del silenzio, (with A. Parente), Pironti, Napoli 2007; Ischia fra sogni e bisogni, (with M. Sasso) Edizioni della Meridiana, Firenze 2009.