"Our Constitution states with effective simplicity that "art and science are free". Art is freedom. Freedom to create, freedom to think, freedom from conditioning. Its revolutionary potential lies in this attitude: and it is no coincidence that authoritarian regimes look at artists with suspicion and monitor them with spasmodic attention, spying on them, censoring them, even imprisoning them. Dictatorships try in every way to promote a state art and culture, which are nothing other than a fictitious art and culture, of the regime, which rewards the servility of official singers and punishes and represses authentic artists".
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, said this, speaking at the Quirinale on 8 March.
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