The proposal for this third number of «piano b» took shape from the common interest for the theme of the conflict. We can’t remain indifferent to the turbulences that configure the political and social climate of these years even though, in particular, this proposal is the outcome of a common interest in the often conflictive dynamics triggered by the presence of art in public contexts and by the artists’ use of provocation, seen as a specific choice designed to draw the public’s attention to specific topics. If the artistic chronicle of these years is marked by those strategies and by the striking controversies that followed them, we should not forget that defining on the whole the groups of artists that enlivened the first part of the XX century with the will to radically change both the idea and the practice of art, it has been introduced term such as “avant-garde” from military lexicon.
Another reason that has brought the conflict at the center of our interests can be found in the role played by art in the construction of war testimonies, or of the repression adopted by the power at the level of both individuals and groups. On this aspect we have been inspired by the well-known and still valid words of Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others (2002), as well as Boris Groys’ acumen in the comparison between the artists’ use of images and the “conservative” language chosen by the terrorists in the years of the Second Gulf War outlined in Art Power (2003).
Furthermore, we have reached a more inclusive synthesis, in which the conflict is understood as a dynamic device that, through the tensioning of contrasting situations and/or point of views, generates some effects. The wide range of issues and themes deals with matters that are internal issues of history and art criticism in different times and contexts (Camarda, Casero, Iannelli, Vargas), and the effective disciplinary openness of «piano b» is confirmed by the presence of reflections on the field of design (Lupo and Cosentino) and, for the first time, of a reflection on the comic-strips (Spinelli).