Preview start: 23 November 2020 Sales: 6 – 8 December 2020 www.benefit-for-artists.net Like in numerous other sectors, many artists are strongly affected by the pandemic. Even before the crisis, their living and working conditions were often precarious. Now it is worse and it is time to ease the financial emergency and support solidarity and common… (read more)
www.artissima.art 3 November – 9 December 2020 Already before the final cancellation of this years’ Turin based art fair ARTISSIMA, the organisers decided to change the traditional format due to the pandemic. Early it was planned to relocate three curated sections to a digital platform named ARTISSIMA XYZ. Moreover, “Frenetic Standstill” as part of… (read more)
Many countries are in the second lockdown. In consequence, theatres, cinemas and also museums are closed. Still, there is no need to renounce cultural activities completely: in several regions, the galleries are still open! Self-evident, the current sanitary regulations such as masks and hand disinfection are followed. Since galleries are rarely crowded after the inauguration,… (read more)
8 October – 6 November 2020 Centro Studi Didattica delle Arte Via Cartoleria 9 Bologna www.fondazionecarlogajani.it Thursday – Sunday, 11:00 – 19:00 free entrance In December of 2009, Carlo Gajani passed away. His left behind oeuvre is witness of a long successful artistic career. Ten years later, is a good moment to look… (read more)
www.miart.it 11 – 13 September 2020 Preview 9 – 10 September 2020 The miart digital in practice Light and heavy emergent artworks Landscapes, Architecture and other Spaces in the contemporary section Impressions of the masters section Initially this year’s Milanese art fair was only postponed, due to the corona-crisis. However, in July the… (read more)
Since the 18 May 2020, the Italian galleries are allowed to reopen after the shutdown due to the corona-crisis. However, people can be received only upon appointment and have to wear a facemask. Opening receptions are still not allowed. Additionally, the international transport of artworks is still difficult. Despite these difficulties, the galleries continue to… (read more)
Already in 2013, Thyra Schmidt created a series of 12 text-posters with the title “Staccato” for the Kunstverein Paderborn. They were presented in the public space on four advertising columns. Subsequently, the artist reedited the same script on 22 typographic sheets. Supplemented by the video “Ouro Preto” (11:28 min), these posters formed the solo exhibition… (read more)
The Corona-crisis has changed our lives a lot. Many countries have limited public activities; several are almost totally shut-down. Schools, universities and shops are closed. This stop of public life, also affects cultural institutions like museums, art spaces and galleries. Many cultural operators defy this standstill and take it as a challenge to enhance their… (read more)
Sono ancora qua. SetUp to be continued Autostazione Piazza XX Settembre 6, Bologna 24 – 26 January 2020 Last autumn Alice Zannoni, co-founder of the SetUp Contemporary Art Fair, announced that there would be no event with this name in 2020. Born in 2013, the alternative trade show for emerging artists and galleries was situated… (read more)
BOOMing Contemporary Art Show DumBo, ex scalo ferroviario del Ravone Via Casarini 19, Bologna https://boomcontemporaryart.com 23 – 26 January 2020 During four days, the first edition of BOOMing took place in the DumBo, the district of a former cargo railway station close to the central station. Artistically directed by Simone Gavoldi, the art fair… (read more)
For the second part of our Art City tour throughout Bologna, we concentrate on the western area of the city centre. Some exhibitions glance at our present, others are going back in history, partly back into archaic times. There are excursions into dream worlds, human or android; forms or colours are featured and our perception… (read more)
Last week, we made some proposals for exhibitions to see during the ART CITY in Bologna, Italy. Now, after the White Night we visited several more venues. Most of them are still open for some time. It is a diverse programme of smaller or bigger shows, where every art lover will find his/her pleasure. For… (read more)
The 44th edition of the Bolognese art fair ARTE FIERA just closed. Time to reflect on this traditional trade show in the heart of the region Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Simone Menegoi, the artistic director for the second time, gathered 155 galleries, thereof 108 in the main section and 47 in the three sections with a special… (read more)
In these days, the Bolognese art week started. Besides the traditional Arte Fiera, Italy’s oldest enduring art fair, there are many collateral events throughout the city and around. This year’s program of the ART CITY is once more larger than in the preceding years. There are 22 main projects and a special one, coordinated by… (read more)
Another year passed by and we would like to glance to what happened in the last months. We visited numerous exhibitions in Bologna and beyond, starting with the Bolognese Art Week, two Milanese art fairs and the Venice Biennale. Later we reported on exhibitions in Bologna, Florence, Bremen, Ferrara and San Gimignano. Moreover, we… (read more)
In a second tour, we visited six more exhibitions of the autumn season in Bologna. Most of them are still ongoing. Although the variety of artists and techniques is comparable to the exhibitions of the first round, the presented shows are more minimalistic in the second part, self-evidently with exceptions. Galleria de’ Foscherari: Mario… (read more)
Galleria Continua Via del Castello 11, San Gimignano https://galleriacontinua.com 28 September 2019 – 6 January 2020 The solo exhibition “Paradise Lost” by Moataz Nasr, curated by Simon Njami carries us into an oriental world in a transition stage between tradition and modernity. Composed by oeuvres in different media, it shows the large range of… (read more)
Agnese Purgatorio & Francesco Di Giovanni MLB Maria Livia Brunelli Gallery Corso Ercole I d’Este 3, Ferrara, Italy www.mlbgallery.com in cooperation with Podbielski Contemporary (Milan) www.podbielskicontemporary.com 4 October – 16 November 2019 For the double personal exhibition “Mondi Migliori” the MLB Home Gallery and Podbielski Contemporary has selected two artists, who questioned earlier… (read more)
After the summer break, there are various new exhibitions in Bologna on view. There are different artists with diverse techniques and subjects. Nevertheless, the exhibitions have in common that they invite to pause and to contemplate the objects to discover them deeply. Goethe-Zentrum: Bauhaus Reloaded 1919-2019: Architettura Bauhaus 1919-1933 Spazio Testoni: Human Places Magma… (read more)
Biennale Arte 2019 11 May – 24 November 2019 www.labiennale.org The 58th Venice Biennale is titled “May You Live In Interesting Times”, mistakenly interpreted as a Chinese curse, evoking to the opponent a challenging and menacing life. Ralph Rugoff himself assigned the title not only to artworks, which “reflect upon precarious aspects of existence today”,… (read more)
Contemporanea 2 Via Ugo Foscolo 6, Florence, Italy www.c2contemporanea2.com 23 July – 31 August 2019 Once again, Antonio Lo Pinto invited an external gallerist to curate an exhibition in his Florence based gallery Contemporanea 2. This time Didier Devillez came from Brussels and brought oeuvres by the Canadian, in Tokyo based photographer and filmmaker Tim… (read more)
On June 21st 2019, the German painter, ceramist and object maker Jürgen Waller celebrated his 80th birthday. Nearly a month later, three exhibitions in his adopted hometown opened its doors to honour the long-standing rector of the University of Fine Arts in Bremen. Additionally, the Kunsthalle Bremen opened an anniversary show already on June 4th…. (read more)
Galleria Enrico Astuni Via Iacopo Barozzi 3, Bologna www.galleriaastuni.net 25 May – 28 September 2019 Summer break in August In his solo exhibition, Where do we go from here? in the Bolognese Galleria Enrico Astuni, Christian Jankowski questions about the relation between artist and audience, both, in the traditional physical contact and the virtual way… (read more)
17 – 22 June 2019 (the gallery exhibitions remain longer open) As every year, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna goes on tour. Besides a programme of events, performances and special exhibitions in Bolognese institutions, the students of the Academy of Fine Arts show their works in galleries throughout the city. All the exhibitions… (read more)
MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna Sala delle Ciminiere Via Don Minzoni 14, Bologna www.mambo-bologna.org 8 June – 8 September 2019 With the exhibition Julian Charrière. All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and Everywhere. the MAMbo invites the visitors to plunge into the submarine world and to pop up from time to time to… (read more)
To start the 58th Venice Biennale, the curator Ralph Rugoff, conceals the entrance of the Central Pavilion with clouds of fog by Lara Favaretto (Thinking Head). The vapour makes not only disappear the building, but is also the expression for smoking brains of thinkers in an undisclosed location. Veiling, disappearance as well as making things… (read more)
Fieramilanocity, Viale Scarampo, gate 5 pad 3, Milano, Italy www.miart.it During four days (4 – 7 April), 185 international art galleries from 18 countries plus Italy met in Milan. It was a broad spectrum of artworks from the beginning last century up to our contemporary present creations. Traditionally subdivided in the sections Established Masters, Established… (read more)
From 22 to 25 March The Mall in the Milanese quarter of Porta Nuova Varesine was the platform for the ninth edition of the MIA PHOTO FAIR. This Italian art fair is dedicated to photography and moving image, however it was dominated by still pictures. The 135 exhibitors outlined a wide-ranging insight into the… (read more)
BolognaFiere Piazza Costituzione Bologna www.artefiera.it 1 – 4 February 2019 The 43rd edition of the longest running art fair in Italy, was for the first time guided by its new artistic director Simone Menegoi. Even though, he had only six months to prepare the exhibition, he succeeded to give a new momentum to attract… (read more)
In the following, there are three main projects on focus. Leandro Erlich fetched some clouds down from the sky and Michele Spanghero invited to a cinematic sound installation in a subterranean historic movie theatre. Eduard Habicher showed the lightweight of steel. Leandro Erlich: Collection de Nuages Michele Spanghero: AGAIN ANEW – Before the film… (read more)
The new exhibition space DAS opened at the right time for the Arte City. Its first exhibition showed contemporary local and international artists, some with a glance to what might be upcoming in this place. Guido Segni at Adiacenze considered how artworks could be conceived in the era of automation of work. Rob Chavasse focussed… (read more)
The installation “Transboundary #4” by Betty Zanelli seems to treat migratory movements of birds of passage. Nevertheless, it is also about barriers which exclude people. Whereas Giovanni de Gara wants to encourage a reflection about welcoming with “Eldorato”. At the association “L’Altro Spazio” we experienced living inclusion and the artist Fabrizio Tartari. With the exhibition… (read more)
Bologna’s Arte City 2019 had just ended. Fortunately, some exhibitions still remain open for a while. Overall, there were over 100 events mentioned in the official programme of the Institution Bologna Musei, thereof 17 curated projects and a special event. This was the performance “les gens d’Unterpan”, where the audience was invited to participate. Moreover,… (read more)
For the 7th edition the SetUp Contemporary Art Fair, around Simona Gavioli had chosen the theme “Ithaca”. 25 galleries, thereof four non-Italian, presented artworks with a focus on the mystical island, home of Odysseus, before and after his 20 years enduring absence, described by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. By his journeys, the… (read more)
Traditionally, the end of January and the first days in February in Bologna, Italy, are dominated by a huge offer of artistic events. This year, more and more exhibitions started earlier, so that we can talk of a real art week around the oldest Italian art fair. Besides the ARTE FIERA (1 – 4 February… (read more)
January We started 2018 with the diptych “Ouagadougou/New York” by Joana Choumali, where the artist from the Ivory Coast, reflects about the impact of migration in the home and the arrival countries. Moreover, we visited the exhibition “Art x Cuba. Contemporary Perspectives since 1989” in the Aachen Ludwig Forum für… (read more)
In June 2018, Giovanni de Gara started his project “Eldorato”, for which he covers church doors with golden thermal blankets all over Italy. The objective of the project is, to encourage a deep reflexion about the subject of welcome towards every individual person, without distinction of race, gender, faith, to give a sign of warmth… (read more)
The current exhibitions for the season start are naturally various: by age and origin of the artists, techniques and intensions and depending on the type of gallery. Nevertheless, there are some formal or thematic links between some shows. At the end of this article, you’ll find a list of several Bolognese exhibitions, a lot with… (read more)
On the newest generation of artists in Italy and one meter and eighty from the border. MAMbo (Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna) Sala delle Ciminiere Via Don Minzoni 14 Bologna www.mambo-bologna.org 22 June – 11 November 2018 On 21 June, the MAMbo opened this year’s summer exhibition “That’s IT!”. The show is the first… (read more)
18 – 23 June 2018 Accademia di Belle Arti & many places in the city www.ababo.it By now in its fourth edition, the Bolognese Academy of Fine Arts opens its doors for the public. Moreover, the students leave their educational terrain. Besides the events and performances organised in the traditional walls, numerous students worked with… (read more)
MAMbo – Project Room 25 May – 16 September 2018 www.mambo-bologna.org In May 2018 the MAMbo (Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna) opened the exhibition “Rosanna Chiessi. Pari&Dispari” in its Project Room. This Project Room is dedicated to point on artists and art actors with an anchoring in the region, but not only. The choice of Rosanna… (read more)
13 – 15 April 2018 fieramilanocity, Milan www.miart.it The 23rd edition of the Milano art fair grew – in comparison to the preceding show – by ten galleries. There were 184 galleries from 19 countries, presented in eight sections. Besides the established and emergent galleries and artists, two departments are particularly interesting. “Decades” offer a… (read more)
Contemporanea 2, Florence, Italy www.c2contemporanea2.com 12 – 27 April 2018 For the exhibition, “Fil Rouge” the Florence gallerist Antonio Lo Pinto invited Elyse Galiano and Donatella Lombardo, two artists with different backgrounds. However, there are common things in the works of both. Formally, the two artists are using – inter alia – textile and thread…. (read more)
Galleria P420, Bologna, Italy http://p420.it 07 April – 02 June 2018 The exhibition “Hypothesis on Infinity” questions about the possibility to extend time into eternity. In addition, spatial borders are another subject. On a whole, the show is a time journey into the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the Italian artist Laura Grisi was… (read more)
Palazzo Pallavicini, Bologna, Italy www.palazzopallavicini.com 3 March – 27 May 2018 The Palazzo Pallavicini just opened an exhibition dedicated to Vivian Maier (1926-2009). This American photographer is for several reasons exceptional. First of all, her official profession was not photographer, but nanny. This autodidact shot over 120.000 photos. None of them was ever published… (read more)
During the weekend of the ARTE FIERA in Bologna, there are many artistic initiatives to welcome visitors and local residents. The range is huge from classical panel painting to installation, film projection and performance. Every art lover might find something interesting. In the following, we present our impressions of 28 events. They are sorted by… (read more)
The 34 galleries represented at this year’s SetUp showed a huge range of the contemporary art production. There were paintings, sculptures, photos and installations from traditional to experimental and from figurative to abstract. Some works were conceptual; others more decorative and still others had a surrealist touch. Several oeuvres used pre-existing objects, changed their appearance… (read more)
In the following, we will present ten galleries, which attracted our attention by a particular curating of the booth. Some are notable, because of their choice of harmonising artists and others by their orchestration. Furthermore, at the end, there is a photo series of interesting outlooks and remarkable single works. 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS,… (read more)
At the first weekend of February, numerous art events took place in Bologna, Italy. Besides the 42nd edition of the ARTE FIERA as point of departure, there were the SetUp Contemporary Art Fair and the Fruit Exhibition. But that is not all: by tradition, there are many other events throughout the city. The ARTE FIERA… (read more)
(Kunst x Kuba. Zeitgenössische Positionen seit 1989) 8 September 2017 – 18 February 2018 Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Jülicher Str. 97-109, Aachen, Germany http://ludwigforum.de From Cuba to Germany In 1984, the first “Havana Biennale” took place and attracted the attention of the western art world to Caribbean and Latin American art. Six years… (read more)
