ICONE IMPOTENTI. Il dissenso politico e ideologico nell'arte italiana contemporanea, dalla pop art alle ultime generazioni

The research takes on those languages of Italian contemporary art that, on the last forty years, have chosen a critical perspective on the political and socio-economical power. Knowing the impossibility of giving a complete view of the problem, I have decided to face the problem around the existence andthe different ways of an iconography and a language strictly connected with political dissent, pointing them out with a selection of Italian works and artists, considering them in relationship with international languages.It’s been a necessity to re-examine the history of art considering the relationships between ideologies and politics, selecting highlights, to dwell upon three moments: from the end of second World War to the end of the Fifties, following the birth and the rise of the ideology of dissent; from the Sixties to the Eighties, considering the passage from the politics to the media, from the action to the iconography ofthe ideology of dissent turning spectacular; from the Eighties till today: from the dissent to a tragic irony, between representations and demythologized symbologies.