Guttuso once wrote: “I would like to achieve total freedom in art, freedom that, just as in life, consists in the truth.” Between the 1950s and the 1968 protests, after war and fascism, Italian art exploded and finally became “contemporary”. This was the most productive period of the 20th century. The masterpieces that marked that decisive turn are at Palazzo Strozzi, in an evocative encounter between visionary artists like Renato Guttuso, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Emilio Vedova, Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, Mario Schifano, Mario Merz and Michelangelo Pistoletto: a group of the highest calibre who paved the way for the birth of contemporary art in Italy.