This year’s ART CITY had over 270 venues in the official program, not to mention the large number of additional initiatives. Even though the duration of 13th edition was extended from one week to 10 days (6 – 16 February 2025), it was literally impossible to visit all the proposed activities and not at all during the hot weekend of the Arte Fiera (7 – 9 February) or only during the Saturday of the White Night with opening hours until midnight. Therefore, we present the best events, which we were able to appreciate. Starting with an inflating house, we saw photographs, videos, modern art and super contemporary installations by renown artists and several to discover.
An Inflating House and more at the Palazzo Verzaglia Rusconi
At 12 a.m. we started with the presentation of Alfredo Barsuglia’s “Inflating House” at the Palazzo Verzaglia Rusconi. Installed at the façade of the Palazzo, is a “breathing” house. Designed like children imagine a house from the outside, it grows out of a window above the omnipresent arcades in the streets of Bologna. During his residency in the city, the Austrian artist was attracted by this architectural particularity, originating from the Middle Ages, by the need to create more living space. Since the problem is still current and not only in Bologna, Alfredo Barsuglia created an additional extension, a kind of “Luftschloss” (castle in the air). By its conception of swelling and subsiding arises the impression of breathing, a symbol of being organic, living. For the artist this is the prospective of a possible future that might be created in urban space.
Also at the Palazzo Verzaglia Rusconi, which houses the Foundation Rusconi, the exhibition “Like an Open Door” manifested the outcome of an artist exchange between Italian and Austrian creatives. Already opened in November 2024, the show changed its face several times, due to the enduring conversation among the participants and the artworks. A performance by Ivana Spinelli preluded the exhibition and posters of the artist duo zweintopf were distributed. zweintopf made ephemeral interventions at public sculptures by Diego Sarti and photographed the results.
Fondazione Carlo Gajani: Watching the Void
The curator Sara Papini invited the artists Debora Vrizzi and Isabella Tortola to the Fondazione Carlo Gajani. Hosted in the late apartment of Carlo Gajani, the three women installed the artworks with a special attention to the staging. Their exhibition “Blinding Plan – The Minimalism of Art” approaches the void. Hence, the representation is difficult in rooms equipped with furniture and most of all many artworks by the late artist and his colleagues. In consequence, they covered it with semi-transparent plastic film. It is not a cancellation of the inventory, but a partial disguise. In between, there are the photographs by Isabella Tortola. She features architecture concentrating on parallelism and the void. On the contrary, Debora Vrizzi creates the void. Her two films are recorded in museums MAXXII in Rome and the MACBA in Barcellona. Filmed during the opening hours, the visiting people contemplate the artworks. However, in the postprocessing, the artist eliminated the displayed pieces. In consequence, it appears as if the public is looking at white walls and one wonders, what might be so interesting in it. Beside an amusing impression by the visitors watching the void, Debora Vrizzi questions our encounter with art.
Close to the Fondazione Carlo Gajani is the Piazza Verdi. There, at the façade of the Teatro Comunale is – until 31 May 2025 – the installation “Siamo con voi nella notte” (We are with you in the night) by Claire Fontaine. Seen before at the Vatican’s Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2024 and at the Museo del Novecento in Florence, the sense changes in Bologna. Originally inspired by graffities in the 1970s pointing to prisoners and fears during the Years of Lead, here the municipality reinterprets the neon. For the political responsible people, the focus is on the mission to find a balance between habitability, security and culture and that all interests and rights are respected, particularly regarding the night life. (until 1 May 2025)
Collezione Comunali d’Arte: Watching the visitors watching artworks
Alex Trusty also focuses on art spectators. However, here we see what the contemplators are looking at. In the first part of the exhibition “Contemporary Museum Watching” at the Collezione Comunali d’Arte di Bologna, we see people appreciating mostly well-known artworks like Matisse’s “Dance” or Georges Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. There is as well a photo shot in Bologna at the Palazzo Magnani (a young woman is looking at Carracci’s fresco “Le storie di Roma”). One can appreciate both the artwork and the contemplator. Before getting a little bit boring, the show changes in its second part, by modifying the perspective of the photographs. Here the museum’s architecture is more in the foreground. Nevertheless, visitors and artworks are not vanishing.
Biblioteca Zeri: Spirits in the Library
In the late dormitory of the renaissance convent of Santa Cristiana is today the reading hall of the Biblioteca Zeri. Since it is part of the art department of the University, the assembled books are about art. This wonderful collection is currently accessible only for researchers and students. However, for Flavio Favelli’s installation “Nuova Mixage Up” ordinary people can have a glance. Lined up like books in the shelves, there are 216 bottles of spirituous beverages, devoid of their labels. Arranged opposite to each other are two walls with compartments, containing three bottles at a time. They are sorted by colours: the anterior shelf bears blue and green liquids, in the rear are yellow, orange and red substances. The two shelves form two diaphanous walls, like the huge windows in gothic cathedrals. Resulting is a certain sublime dialogue between the books and the bottles: spirits are communicating with spirit. (until 28 March 2025)
Mario Nanni and his light poems
By chance, we dropped in the museovirgola, Mario Nanni’s workshop, home and museum in the via Santo Stefano 94. It was a very poetic experience, dedicated to light. The “scrittoredellaluce” (writerofthelight) showed his installations in his labyrinthine spaces during the White Night. In every room waited another surprise. This wide range of purposes to apply light starting from a simple bulb over video and private lightening systems to façade illuminations and stage design was very enlightening.
Further in the via Santo Stefano is the Palazzo Zani, hosting the Consorzio della Bonifica Renana, a public organisation for the water management of the region. In the forecourt of the building, students of graphic design of the Accademia di Belle Arti of Bologna, show their banners inspired by the topics of our time like water, environment, biodiversity and technology. (until 22 March 2025)
On the way to the next venue, we saw the installation “Fioriture Sintetiche” (Synthetic blooms) in the garden of the church Santa Maria dei Servi. Matteo Mandelli and Luca Baldocchi arranged traditional terra cotta plant pots in a greenhouse. However, the botanicals growing there are not organic, but digital. Created by AI, based on photos of real flowers, they change permanently. The two artists invite the public to reflect on the fragility of our environment. Hereby, the greenhouse stands for the human controlled nature, the traditional pots for eternity and the virtual flowers for the future.
Glancing into the past
With the exhibition “Nanni Balestrini – Una lunga primavera” (A long Spring), the AF Gallery makes a step into the past. Balestrini created collages from pages of the magazines Potere Operaio and Potere Operaio del lunedì from the 1970s. In a distance of 50 years, one might reconsider the former slogans. Arranged on and around a great photography by Tano D’amico, showing a demonstration of young people at the Bolognese Piazza Maggiore in 1977, the show recalls that Bologna was a hotspot of the student movement and the extra-parliamentary opposition in the 1970s. (until 17 April 2025)
Other exhibitions are pointing backwards to earlier creations, too. The Palazzo Bentivoglio shows a reconstitution of the collection of Antonio Stame and Vincenzina Lanteri, assembled between the 1940s and 80s, when they lived in the Palazzo Bentivoglio. Today widely dispersed to other owners, “Riassunto delle puntate precedenti” (Summery of previous episodes), there are national and international renown artists represented. Introduced by a sculpture by Hans Arp, you can meet Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters and Alberto Burri. There are also works by Alighiero Boetti, Fausto Melotti, Piero Manai and Filippo de Pisis. International and at the same time local stars like Giorgio Morandi and Concetto Pozzati could not be missing.
The exhibition hall Casa Saraceni from the Fondazione Carisbo dedicates a show to the late informal painter Maria Petroni (1921-1977). With a selected presentation of works, the visitor can attend the artist’s development from figurative to abstract paintings. Dominating are bright colours, but there are also some darker pictures. (until 8 June 2025)
Luisa Gardini is from a younger generation. Born in 1935 in Ravenna, she moved for her studies to Rome and discovered the oeuvre of US-American artists like Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly. In the 1960s Luisa Gardini introduced found objects and pieces of daily life into her works. Later also writing became important, which she uses like a drawing, occupying the whole space of a picture. The sculptures become assemblages and the paintings objects. Until today, she has her specific language, without repeating herself. Hence, the title “La stessa voce ma non lo stesso canto” (The same Voice but not the same Song). (until 8 March 2025, in the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna)
Back into the contemporary
In occasion of the presentation of Andrea Mastrovito’s collective work “MCm”, which arises from meetings, stories and dialogues of the employees of the traditional ceramic manufacturer Marco Corona, the film “NYsferatu – Symphony of a Century” was projected during the first ART CITY weekend. Produced in 2017, Andrea Mastrovito transfers the plot of the classic Nosferatu to New York. Moreover, Syria comes surprisingly close to the metropole. Herewith, the original storyline from 1922 gets a strong connection to our contemporary time.
With her site-specific work at the Palazzo De’Toschi, “In a naked Room” Peggy Franck catapults us directly in the here and now. The space becomes a projection screen for painting, photography, sculpture and installation. Most clearly is the appropriation in the large Sala Convegni of the Banca di Bologna. A huge abstract painting in bright colours covers most of the floor. With expressive brushstrokes, the artist visualises her inner and physical movement. But even though conceived for this special room, it can be disassembled and go into another form of existence in another exhibition. The same applies to the other surrounding assemblages. (until 2 March 2025)
Another form of appropriation shows Ai Weiwei’s show “Who am I” at the Palazzo Fava. The dissident and artist absorbs his environment and moulds it into his artworks. Hereby, he uses various techniques, from traditional ceramic, paperwork, woodwork and glass to photography and video. Strongly represented are interpretations of well-known artworks, rebuild from Lego bricks. It is an evident allusion to the pixelization of our visual world. More interesting are the ceramic works. Seemingly traditional Chinese vases by colour and pattern, there are motifs from European painting but notably the narration of flight and expulsion. A video shows Ai Weiwei eating, photos depict the artist dropping a precious vase or him showing his middle finger to famous landmarks. (until 4 May 2025)
