In 1955, Theodor Adorno famously declared, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.” In the new century, the barbaric takes new forms. Nature rebels against humanity’s voracity and foolishness. What was once known as a cold front is now a cut-off low. These days, amid the sadness and dismay caused by destruction and mismanagement in Valencia, Spain, writing poetry also feels unimaginable. There is still too much pain. Yet, in the face of disaster, we can always turn to art. Art offers us echoes of the future, untainted by the irritating vulgarity of influencers, YouTubers, sensationalist TV hosts, and other figures of banal virtual spectacle.

What we need now is not the art of consolation—the art of the day before—but the art of warning—the art of the day after. In a world dominated by the dehumanizing logic of algorithmic prediction, which erodes common sense with automated commands (including belated, exculpatory phone alerts), art reconnects us to the human, the tangible, the sensory, and the communal through profound intimacy. Its power lies in metaphor, as in poetry, and in ironic distance. Metaphor raises awareness, warns, and critiques, but always engages honestly with the reality of the world. Allegory avoids the mire of catastrophe, yet reminds us of our destiny. Unlike the disinformation and moralizing that saturate new media—seen recently in the region of Valencia, perfectly aligned with the wave of disinformation led by the Trump-Musk duo in the United States—art educates.

Metaphor and allegory haven’t always been political: just consider Botticelli or Brueghel. Yet, denunciation was at the heart of Picasso and Duchamp, just as Beuys and Santiago Sierra employed subtle critique. Then, there is anticipatory art, which uses metaphor and allegory to whisper the truths society refuses to hear—like the enduring, elusive marks left by Banksy’s murals, chronicling that neoliberal era which is no longer our reality. Today, we inhabit a post-neoliberal, extractivist era filled with intangible prisons, a labyrinth without exits, only gateways to the digital sphere.

A varied, concise selection of anticipatory works is showcased in the exhibition “The Greatest Emergency” (on display until January 12, 2025), organized by Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid and curated by philosopher and cultural critic Santiago Zabala. The exhibition presents a dozen international contemporary, multimedia works addressing climate change, gender violence, migration crises, energy shortages, and rising inequality. These pieces work as indicators of our world’s fragile state, the world in a constant state of emergency anesthetized by silence, excuses, and irresponsible inaction. Once again, don’t forget Valencia!

Zabala, whose recent works on emergency and warning include Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency and Being at Large: Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts, argues that the true emergency is the absence of emergency—or, more precisely, the absence of a pedagogy of emergency. The greatest danger in this era of endless crises is failing to prevent them and, even worse, exploiting them, channeling them politically through emotional extractivism. Deniers and sadistic groups like Spain’s political party Vox or Trump’s illiberal collaborators in the United States thrive on this approach.

Against such forces, art confronts us with our ghosts, the truths we prefer to ignore. This spectral relationship with reality is vividly captured in one of the exhibition’s works: Lines (57° 59′ N, 7° 16′ W) (2018), by visual artist Pekka Niittyvirta and Timo Aho. In a dim seascape near the British Outer Hebrides, a photo shows a solitary house illuminated by a horizontal beam of light. This is no random effect but a projection of the sea level predicted for 2050. The installation uses sensors to respond to rising tides, activating as water levels increase. While the piece reminds us of decades-old scientific warnings—that the sea is steadily encroaching on the land—city and coastal governments continue to blind millions of citizens living in flood-prone homes. Have I mentioned: don’t forget Valencia!?

Moreover, art is a boundlessly creative network. Its performative power inspires new ideas. The two creators themselves chose to continue the project by developing a new tool, more informative than allegorical. The planet’s state of emergency demands it. Their digital platform Coastline Paradox maps critical areas worldwide where rising seas threaten the land. Exploring the site, I zoom in on Spain, on the Mediterranean coast, on Valencia. A white alert patch marks the extreme vulnerability of Valencia’s Albufera wetlands. The patch grows at an alarming rate as I scroll through the timeline: 2000, 2050, 2100…

Art also allows us to dream, to project into the future. Considering the cultural preferences of Valencia’s President Carlos Mazón—who surrounds himself with bullfighters and touristic entrepreneurs—it is clear he has never heard of Niittyvirta and Aho. Neither had I. Yet, what is truly troubling is resting assured that our leaders will remain oblivious to poetry and the subtle messages of art, which offer insights into the present and, more importantly, the knowledge needed to imagine the future world and to prevent the disasters of the past.

During times of social and civilizational crisis, artistic vanguards emerge to offer glimpses of light and hope. Often, we recognize these subtle signals only in hindsight because humans are fallible. Our only moral imperative is to learn from the past and rectify. To change course, in the face of catastrophe, let us return to art.

Image credit: Timo Aho and Pekka Niittyvirta, Lines (57° 59′ N, 7° 16′ W), 2018.