On the Brink of Change. Art imagines the World After the Pandemic

Abstract

On the Brink of Change is the idea that launched issue number 5 of «Novecento Transnazionale». The urgency that the issue posed in our Call for Papers of May 2020 was summarized in a series of questions we posed for further reflection: How have situations of crisis or emergency in the past and present led artists to make particular choices? How does the museum contend with states of emergency? How can art history and the task of writing itself not only give voice to the crisis, but also rethink its own forms and ways of doing things? Which poetics and states of artistic research become signs or symptoms of individual, historical, or cultural conditions of crisis? How does art think up and imagine alternative models and directions to take with respect to nature, the environment, ecology, and sustainability? The proposals and essays we received, which are published in this issue, present interesting perspectives. They are multiple in the viewpoints they address and open out to further reflection. The questions that emerge outline different avenues of research and study, without, however, closing the door to further discussion or providing complete, exhaustive answers.