Drafted by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Marianna Vecellio.

The exhibition Artisti in guerra / Artists in a Time of War presents over 140 works by artists who were or are at war. Their works express empathy and complexity, unease, but also great humanity.

Beyond its political and economic causes, beyond its pacifist condemnation or its justification as a lesser but necessary evil, war and its meaning (or non-meaning) is seen in this exhibition from a cultural perspective that includes art and philosophy.

Recent international conflicts have led us to create a new exhibition that investigates the meaning of war, to ask ourselves how artists process the organized violence of war, with its armies, strategies and tactics. They highlight its horror and its inexplicability, suspended as it is between rational calculations, on the one hand, and utter unpredictability on the other.

The exhibition takes over the entire top floor of Castello di Rivoli where military garrisons were housed until the end of the Second World War, well before the castle became Italy’s first museum of contemporary art in 1984.

The exhibition takes its cue from the well-known series of etchings with acquatint and drypoint, Disasters of war, 1810-1815 (1 ed. 1863), which Francisco Goya (Fuendetodos, 1746–Bordeaux, 1828) never wanted to release during his lifetime, with the exception of some artist’s proofs kept secret, for fear of censorship or falling into disgrace with the courts.

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