This issue analyzes the different practices, uses and meaning of the cut in the humanities and social sciences. Through a careful selection of specific case studies and methodological perspectives, this collection of essays intends to offer an overview of some of the multiple areas of intersection between different ways of approaching the notion of cut: as a tool of analysis and representation, as a means of production identifying an artistic genre, as an operator to visually affirm an awareness of the power of art-making processes, and as a method of rupture and innovation, each time producing new approaches to the primary elements of artistic making (matter, space, forms), new affirmations of the artist's status, and new forms of mediation and re-mediation. It includes contributions by Maria Luisa Catoni, Camilla Pietrabissa, Maja-Lisa Müller, Costanza Caraffa, Sara Romani, Laura Di Fede, Agnese Ghezzi, Linda Bertelli, Sonia Colavita, Maria Giusti, Laura Forti and Francesca Leonardi.