Walking around Artissima, “the fair that will transform you”

Turin. Personally performative experiences – says Laurie Anne Paul, professor of philosophy at Yale University – are those that we cannot in any way anticipate or rationally prefigure, because – as she writes in her book Transformative Experience (Oxford) – “nothing can replace their living manifestation as a revelation of a territory still unknown to us “. It is from the thought of her that Luigi Fassiformer director of the MAN of Nuoro e new director of Artissimadrew inspiration for the 2022 edition which opens to the public from today until next Sunday, November 6. “An inspiration – he explains to Foglio – that is also valid for illuminating the way we experience art, in turn a tool that helps to think in a more complex way, in the long term, without a frantic breath. Those who choose art in their life with all its revealing forms are already accustomed to the enriching experience of the unknown, to have faith in innovation and in the potential of their own personal change “.

The theme of this edition quotes that title of Paul’s book to tell the way in which we live in our lives the emergence of transformative experiences in which we have been participants – willingly or not – in the two and a half years of pandemic that have upset – transforming it , in fact – our way of thinking, but above all, of living. Artissima also returned to it like all cultural events, but now it has finally returned to presence in the bright spaces of the Oval, at the Lingotto in Turin, after years of confinement on the web. “With the new regime of complete opening, adds the Turin-based Fassi who succeeds Ilaria Bonacossa – we have realized the importance of relationships, which enrich and, in fact, transform”.

We found and made many relationships while walking among the stands of the fair – the only one with a publicly owned brand – among the 174 galleries, of which 60 per cent foreign, arriving from 4 continents and 28 countries. Among these, 42 come for the first time, also from China, but there is no shortage of presences from Africa and South America, as well as a new entry from Anchorage, Alaska, and a strong core of 21 galleries from Berlin and the rest of Germany. “Too many”, according to Undersecretary Vittorio Sgarbi we met yesterday afternoon in the stands together with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the Castello di Rivoli / Museum of Contemporary Art. “They are of the highest quality, but it should have at most sixty galleries to be able to see them at their best”. “I would like to double Artissima and do it also at the Mart in Rovereto”, she adds. A promise / truth or just a provocation?

In the meantime, we continue the walk through Present Future, the section with the Illy Prize dedicated to emerging talents brought back to the center of the exhibition space (curated in past editions by Fassi), Back to the future, a journey to rediscover works created over the years. ’60, and Drawings, which reaffirms the centrality of this technique even in today’s art. The Main Section is always dedicated to the most representative galleries in the world contemporary sector while the New Entries, to those emerging on the international scene, clear examples of what the director reiterated, of the ability that Artissima has to internationalize a commercial track, that of the market, but above all that of personal relationships, nourishing the agenda of curators and directors of Italian and international museums who meet, exchange ideas and discover artists they do not know. For example, we discovered the Baleno Gallery, a new Roman gallery (Pigneto area), opened by Roberto Scalmana from Brescia, deliberately choosing an ome that emphasizes its temporal and visual dimension with Caterina De Nicola and her paintings on paper and sculptures. . From the Milanese Viasaterna, there is the Apulian Teresa Giannico with her digital collages that many mistake for paintings, a careful work on the perception of images taken from the web and their constructions. The artist Romina Bassu, star of Studio Sales together with Flavio Favelli (protagonist at the GAM in Turin with the exhibition I masters Serie Oro curated by Elena Volpato), amazes how only she can do with her suspended women in pastel colors and, for the first time, drawing a man, Orlando, to whom she puts a lipstick. In the meantime, we meet the designer Ilenia Durazzi, creative director of Durazzi Milan, bags (ad) arte, enthusiastic about this “new life” – as she defines it – of works, artists, collectors and the public, “a right way to see what is happening with one’s own eyes having a personal perception of it ”. The Tuscan gallery owner Francesco Ozzola, owner of the Suburbia Contemporary gallery in Barcelona, ​​underlines the importance of this particular moment that art in general is experiencing, “a real rebirth to relaunch the strength of the national and international network of a fair such as this “,” the real Italian fair dedicated to art “, echoes the collector Ernesto Esposito,” of the right size, with a varied program and pleasantly intellectual rather than commercial “, adds Matteo Schuerch, one of the youngest collectors in Italy. art based in Lugano. With Valerio Berruti, star with his sculpture almost 13 meters high dedicated – and called as – his city, Alba, we visit the space of Franco Noero, with works by Henrik Olesen and Francesco Vezzoli.

The walk between the stands, it must be said, is a pleasure. There are a lot of people, it is true, but the people are well spaced and there is never a crowd. A uniform public, polite and colorful in its own way like the splendid flower created by Agostino Iacurci and exhibited at the Ex Elettrofonica Gallery, a natural tower of Babel with romandi to Goethe, his Journey to Italy and the illusion of being able to find perfection, beyond than beauty, only here. From Francesca Antonini, we find two certainties: the meticulous oil on canvas by Marta Naturale and the illuminating golds on the canvases by Antonello Viola, already the protagonist of an interesting / dialogue exhibition (Aperto Confine sulla Gorgone di Sartorio), hosted at the Galleria Nazionale d ‘ Modern Art of Rome. The Icaro performance at the Morra foundation has its own reason, while Sandra Vàsquez de la Horra with the inscription Is it later? JES in her Nocturno makes us question the meaning of time and its transformation, to stay on the theme of the fair, of which the charming red-haired girl painted by Rebecca Brodskis doesn’t seem to care. Another Rebecca (Ackroyd) strikes our attention at Peres projects with Paola Salvador, whom Matteo Cordero, a young artist from Mondovì likes, and the artist Reverie, who wears one of his peculiar creations around his neck: a movable ceramic spine and copper and platinum. Merlin James pleasantly provokes at P420 Bologna with his Boy, Lucia Cantò, from Pescara, with her scallop shells full of red wine, entitled Nude (in Italian), which somewhat reflects the sense of all the works of the Monitor Gallery of Paola Capata, where Matteo Fato is also there. From Tucci Russo, museum works with the Acacia Thorns and the Terra su Terra trunk by Giuseppe Penone, those by Giovanni Anselmo, Paolini and Tony Cragg. Interesting Artissima Junior, the project born in collaboration with Juventus and aimed at the very young visitors of the fair (from 6 to 11 years old), involved in the creation of a collective work of art with an exceptional tutor, the artist Giovanni Ozzola ( great lover of stars and constellations) represented by the Galleria Continua, one of the star galleries of the fair.

Artissima is inside the fair, but also in the city where a visit to the Intesa San Paolo Gallerie d’Italia is not to be missed with the Collective Individuals exhibition, a video review on the current difficulty of individuals in feeling part of a community, but above all with the ‘special tribute to Lisetta Carmi (Suonare Forte, the title). The three museums of the city – Gam, Palazzo Madama and Mao, Museum of oriental art – host the So will your voice vibrate project, three sound installations entrusted to Riccardo Benassi, Darren Bader and Charwei Tsai and the Castello di Rivoli hosts “Horizons tremendous “, the new and fascinating installations by Olafur Eliasson. The Merz Foundation hosts “Alert” by the Israeli artist Michal Rovner while the Sandretto Foundation hosts new exhibitions, including “Backwards Ahead” with works from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection, which turns 30, but above all the faces and bodies of the men and women of Victor Man, very elegant in their sensuality. There is no shortage of awards, such as the FPT for Sustainable Art award, promoted by FPT Industrial and born with the mission of enhancing sustainability issues in contemporary art, this year went to the Colombian artist Nohemi Perez for his work Apuntes para quemas, while the one organized by Jaguar in a mirror cage with colored lights is an An Alchemic Experience which is a clear tribute to the American philosopher above and to this fair, which perhaps “will transform you”, to quote the words again of the director Fassi. We cannot guarantee this, but the possibility of continuing to dream, keeping your eyes open on the works you will see, is certainly possible. Do it with the Luci d’Artista by designer-artist Marcantonio, who created with Seletti the poetic installation Inner Glow, a work that, evoking the image of a life-sized little girl who carefully holds a luminous sphere in her hands, it immediately reconnects us to that childish, curious, spontaneous soul that still lives in each of us. And, again, with the works at the Gallery of the Neapolitan Tiziana Di Caro who introduced us to Teresa Gargiulo and her letters of the alphabet written with a handwriting of an elementary school child and her canvases, written with the same technique, containing sentences strong and disarming (Where to be vulnerable; Allowing it to happen) thus creating a complex and in its own way attractive balance. Or with the work with neon by Marcello Maloberti from the Galleria Raffaella Cortese. “The rain – reads the white luminous writing – sews the earth to the sky”. And that can only be true.