Tarik Sabry and Giuseppe Seminara host seminar on truth, simulation and visual resistance

Image by Giuseppe Seminara

On July 1st, artist Giuseppe Seminara, in collaboration with Prof. Tarik Sabry lead a virtual seminar to discuss the role the artist in a a time of war and crisis.

The seminar, “The Role of the Artist in Contemporary Society: Truth, Simulation and Visual Resistance,” brought together contemporary artists and scholars for a collective reflection that wove together art, critical thought, and a gaze upon the present. It aimed to investigate the “tension between reality and appearance, inviting the viewer to reflect on the role of art in contemporary society.”

Key themes explored included:

• What it means to be an artist in contemporary society.
• The artist as a witness to the unease and fragmentation of reality.
• The role of the body and instinct in the artistic gesture and in life itself.

The seminar sought to provide a space for exchange and investigation, not to assert certainties but to share doubts, with the goal of opening a critical and poetic space where the image was rediscovered as a living, fragile, and necessary presence. It discussed the artist as a figure who was both in permanent exile yet central.

The seminar arose from the urgency to rethink the role of the artist as a critical, sensitive, and resistant figure in an age dominated by saturation, the spectacle of experience, and the standardisation of meaning. It also explored how art could resist the logic of entertainment and hyper-visibility, becoming a counter-media.

Attendees were invited to discuss and reflect upon such questions as how art can resist the logic of hyper-visibility, commodification, and spectacle, and whether it is still possible to think of the image as a fragile yet necessary presence. The event concluded with the guiding phrase: “This is not intended as a space for conclusions, but as a fragile yet necessary threshold — a moment where artistic thought becomes a shared device to critically inhabit our time.”

See the full event agenda below.

Giuseppe Seminara is a contemporary visual artist who explores, through his work, the discomfort of modern human existence, marked by superficiality and invisible structures that limit individual freedom. His research focuses on themes such as fragmented identity, absence, and simulation, adopting a poetic and conceptual approach that blends image, gesture, and word. Through painting, graphics, and installations, Giuseppe investigates the tension between reality and appearance, inviting the viewer to reflect on the role of art in contemporary society.