There is no museum, gallery, institution, cultural space, building that does not participate in the feast of appointments, vernissages, performances that invades Bologna in the days full of Art City, the event promoted by the Municipality in collaboration with BolognaFiere, on the occasion of Arte Fiera which is held from 24 to 26 January in the exhibition halls. As for eight years now, it is necessary to have comfortable shoes and a lot of curiosity, the opportunities are not lacking. What we offer is a (not too much) reasoned guide to orient yourself in this art marathon, inside and outside the ArtCity schedule. Over 150 events, all with free admission.
Spotlight on DumBO, this year's real debut. The new regenerated space inside the former Ravone railway station, close to the train station, hosts the special event of the event: on the 24th and 25th there will be the national preview of "La vita nuova" signed by Romeo Castellucci , beloved director of prose and opera. Unmissable. Also in DumBo to keep an eye on is Booming, the first edition of the new contemporary art fair directed by Simona Gavioli: thirty national and international galleries to give voice to emerging art, not as a personal data but as a need and urgency (23- January 26). Two thematic strands, environment and feminisms, and a curiosity: the "Wandering Cathedrals" of the Bolognese singer-songwriter Luca Carboni.
Among the unusual spaces, the homage to a great master like Concetto Pozzati, exactly in his private studio in via Zamboni 57, under the Two Towers, open to the public for the first time: "I am a painter" is the performance by Angela Malfitano (director) and Massimo Scola (actor). Poetic. The choice of location is also singular for the Xing collective which positioned the “Morestalgia” installation (a technological curtain with a pulsating LED screen) by Riccardo Benassi on the fourth underground floor of the station between platforms 17 and 18 of the high-speed train. To be taken on the fly. Doors open to the contemporary at MAMbo, Museum of Modern Art in Bologna.
Curated by the director Lorenzo Balbi, with Sabrina Samorì, the beautiful "AGAINandAGAINandAGAINand" offers a reasoning on the theme of the repetition of our society through the research of artists from all over the world: Ed Atkins, Luca Francesconi, Apostolos Georgiou, Ragnar Kjartansson, Susan Philipsz , Cally Spooner and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Sissi brings her sartorial creations under the vaults of Palazzo Bentivoglio: “Clothes” are dress sculptures, made with the most diverse materialsthat sculpt the body. From the catwalk. The exhibition at the Fondazione del Monte in via delle Donzelle, curated by Fabiola Naldi and Maura Pozzati, is not to be missed for its accuracy and quality: it is a photographic collective "3 Body Configurations" dedicated to Claude Cahun, VALIE EXPORT, Ottonella Mocellin, three witnesses of the movements of the XNUMXth century.
Also curated by Pozzati, is the ad hoc installation for the spaces of the Oratory of San Filippo Neri: "Nave Nodriza" by the Spanish Eulalia Validosera: a flagship between multimedia and video. A site-specific installation also in the Chapel of S. Maria dei Carcerati in Palazzo Re Enzo: the intervention by Ann Veronica Janssens offers three circular mirrors that overturn the perception of space. A few steps away, at Palazzo Re Enzo, the photographic exhibition “Meninos de rua”, organized by Contemporary Concept. In the eighteenth-century Palazzi Vizzani in via S. Stefano there is "Filigrana", the exhibition with Stefano Arienti, Pierpaolo Campanini, Maurizio Mercuri, curated by Fulvio Chimento, while those by Donatella Lombardo are extremely refined mute and stitched scores exhibited at the Music Museum of Major road.
At Davìa Bargellini, a secret civic museum dedicated to arts and crafts, there is the blue project by the duo Antonello Ghezzi: "Go ahead to fly" has blue traffic lights that allow even the late eighteenth-century carriage kept there to leave. Collective of artists for the Salone della Banca di Bologna at Palazzo De' Toschi: "Ordinary realities" are works of painting with, among others, Helene Appel, Luca Bertolo, Maureen Gallace, Andrew Grassie, Clive Hodgson, Maria Morganti, Carol Rhodes, Salvo, Michele Tocca, Patricia Treib. Single project instead for the photographic work of Silvia Camporesi, "Circular View" at the Spazio Carbonesi. Promoted by Hera, the exhibition recounts the twelve-month evolution of the construction works of the biomethane plant in Sant'Agata Bolognese, capturing the architectural peculiarities of those buildings, between poetry and work.
In the spaces on the first floor of the bus station, on the ashes of the off Set Up fair, the exhibition “I'm still here. SetUp to be continued” by Alice Zannoni, made up of over 30 artists who have donated their works to help support the rebirth of the fair itself. Also curated by Zannoni, is the project by Andrea Bianconi “In Bologna. SIT DOWN TO HAVE AN IDEA”: a video in the bus station announcing that 24 seats will be available to citizens in as many 24 places in the city: from the Duse Theater to the arcades (freshly nominated by Unesco as a World Heritage Site). From selfies. The Piccola Galleria exhibition is also amusing, probably the smallest exhibition space in the world: the showcase-cabinet of the Caffè Rubik which houses the photographs of past editions of the Sanremo Festival by Guido Calamosca, in the selection by Giorgia Olivieri.
For children, the initiative of BimbòArte should be noted which until Sunday proposes initiatives on the theme of the beauty of nature, in collaboration with Genus Bononiae: workshops to let even the youngest discover works of art. The offer in the spaces outside the city walls of Bologna is remarkable. Suggestive work by Alessandro Lupi from Cubo (the company museum of the Unipol group): “One too free. Mirrors, shadows, visions”. The title says it all. At MAST there is the new project “Uniform into the work/Out of the work” curated by Urs Stahel, which includes a group show on work uniforms in the images of 44 international photographers and a monographic exhibition by Walead Beshty which brings together hundreds of portraits of insiders of the art world met by the artist during his career.
In the Spazio Kappanoun in San Lazzaro di Savena, “Another stone | another stone”, solo exhibition by Jimmie Durham, giant of contemporary art and winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2019. On display is a selection of works from private Italian collections that show the American artist's association with the stone material, started when, held in Yokohama prison in Japan, was called to break rocks to serve his sentence. Another city suburb, the one offered by mtn | Navile temporary museum: a collective of artists to tell the concept of sculpture in "Sculpural Training", with a work by the German Joseph Beuys.
