The Battleground of Art : Radical Curating in the Crisis of Neoliberalism

Activist and curator Marco Baravalle shows how artists across the global south and north are building alter-institutions-collective, autonomous infrastructures that challenge both state and market control.Drawing on operaismo, decolonial theory, and two decades of radical curating, he outlines an artistic practice grounded in cooperation, solidarity, and resistance. Revisiting the insurgent art movements of the 1960s and 1970s, Baravalle traces their echoes in contemporary struggles-from independent spaces in Venice to cultural resistance in Palestine.He also exposes the dynamics of toxic philanthropy and how cultural funding can reproduce neoliberal domination, while highlighting alter-institutional strategies that break this cycle. A bold theoretical and practical intervention, The Battleground of Art redefines artistic autonomy as a collective, decolonial, and anti-fascist project of transformation.