From 9 to 12 March 2018, the international fair in Italy dedicated to art photography, conceived and directed by Fabio Castelli and Lorenza Castelli, returns to The Mall in Milan, in the Porta Nuova district, now in its eighth edition.
MIA Photo Fair will propose a series of interesting novelties and projects presented by the exhibitors, which this year will be a total of 130, of which 90 galleries (37 from abroad, which double the number of last year).
This data confirms how the credibility and seriousness of the fair has gone beyond national borders, confirming its quality now also recognized abroad, with the presence of galleries from Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Greece, Israel, but also overseas (USA, China, Singapore, Argentina).
The requests were examined by the scientific committee composed of Fabio Castelli, Gigliola Foschi, Roberto Mutti, Enrica Viganò.
The relationship between MIA Photo Fair and BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, Main Sponsor of the event, continues for the seventh consecutive year. Also for 2018, the BNL BNP Paribas Group Prize is awarded, assigned by a jury to the artists who take part in the fair, exhibiting with their own reference galleries. The finalist works will be published on @bnl_cultura, the BNL Instagram account dedicated to art and photography. The winning work will become part of the Bank's artistic heritage, which currently has over 5.000 works. BNL, committed to the themes of Diversity & Inclusion, pays tribute to female photography by exhibiting the works of Marie Bovo, Silvia Camporesi and Rori Palazzo in its own area within the fair, which with their different and original artistic variations enrich the BNL Collection . Furthermore, guests of the BNL exhibition area will also have at their disposal a guide to the fair which offers a journey through the works of photographers created by the curator Emanuela Mazzonis.
Lavazza is once again reconfirmed as a partner of MIA Photo Fair, accompanying it from the outset. For its eighth edition, the Lavazza Artistic Coffee will speak through the images of the 2018 Calendar "2030: What Are You Doing?“, artistic megaphone of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations to make our planet a more sustainable place by 2030. The project, born from the creative idea of Armando Testa, was created by Platon , photographer and storyteller known worldwide for his shots of the most influential world leaders, entrepreneurial giants and entertainment icons.
At the center of his lens, portrayed in an essential and characteristic black and white, are 17 ambassadors of sustainability, men and women concretely committed to building a more just world from an environmental, social and economic point of view, such as chef Massimo Bottura, the American actor Jeremy Renner, the champion of the oceans Alexandra Cousteau, Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, passing through the tennis champion André Agassi up to Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the UN Network for Sustainable Development.
Thanks to the precious contribution of the partner Eberhard & Co., Swiss watchmaker, which has been supporting special projects related to the world of archives at MIA Photo Fair since 2014, this year the first edition of the Open Archives Award, with the sponsorship of Rete Fotografia and IO Donna (the feminine of Corriere della Sera of RCS Mediagroup). The project is carried out with the collaboration of AFIP International – Association of Professional Photographers, National Association of Professional Photographers TAU Visual and GRIN Association – National Iconographic Editors Group, members of Rete Fotografia.
The recognition, conferred by a jury composed of Fabio Castelli, Renata Ferri (IO Donna – the feminine of Corriere della Sera), Laura Gasparini (Photo Library of the Panizzi Library of Reggio Emilia) and Lucia Miodini (Study Center and Archive of Communication, University of Studi di Parma), went to the Carla Cerati Archive.
Il Open Archives Award consists of a grant to support interventions aimed at the conservation and protection of the winning archive by Eberhard & Co. combined with the donation of a Perfection V850 PRO scanner supplied by Epson.
Furthermore, within the project, two honorable mentions were awarded to the Gianpaolo Barbieri Foundation and the Paola Mattioli archive, which will each receive a Perfection V850 PRO scanner, thanks to Epson's contribution.
The fair will also host the second edition of the RaM Sarteano Award which arises from the collaboration between MIA Photo Fair and the Municipality of Sarteano (SI), which provides for the choice of some artists who will be invited to exhibit in a collective exhibition in the months of July - September 2018, inside the Rocca Manenti.
The selection committee of the Prize will be formed by Fabio Castelli, Francesco Landi, mayor of the Municipality of Sarteano and by the curators Roberto Mutti, Gigliola Foschi and Enrica Viganò.
For the second consecutive year IQOS will be present at MIA Photo Fair with a lounge that this year hosts "Faces & Lights", an innovative project specifically designed for IQOS by Antoine Le Grand, an international artist, best known for his extraordinary portraits of characters from the entertainment world.
The public will be able to be involved in the performative project with the portraits for HP of Settimio Benedusi, who will also be the protagonist together with Oliviero Toscani in a round table during the cultural events.
MIA Photo Fair is always looking for new things to offer to its public. Also this year there will be many interesting projects to study the history of photography, such as the one presented by the Jörg Maaß Kunsthandel gallery in Berlin (with historic American photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Robert Adams, Robert Frank, William Eggleston and Man Ray and European such as Andreas Feininger and Helmut Newton up to Gilles Lorin), from Spazio Damiani in Bologna with Hiroshi Sugimoto, Joel Meyerovitz, Larry Fink, from Contrasto Galleria in Milan with great masters such as Mario Giacomelli, William Klein, Sebastião Salgado, Ferdinando Scianna, from Photo&Co in Turin with Luigi Ghirri, Mimmo Jodice, Gabriele Basilico, Giovanni Gastel, at Suite59 in Amsterdam with André Villers and Edward Quinn, at the Galerie Frederic Got in Paris with Annie Leibovitz, Harry Benson and Steve McCurry and at the Bildhalle gallery in Zurich with René Burri , René Groebli and Werner Bishof.
On the subject of original projects, unpublished work can be admired Joie de vivre by Letizia Cariello, hosted by the stand of the Galleria Massimo Minini in Brescia, the project by Jorge Miño, curated by Massimo Scaringella and presented by Ungallery of Buenos Aires, those of Berlin's Semjon Contemporary with Gerda Schütte and Galerie Wichtendahl with Nicole Ahland and that of Belgian gallery Atelier Relief, which leads to the trespassing of photography from two-dimensional boundaries with photographic works that become sculptures in the interpretations of artists George Byrne, Matthieu Veunot, Gustav Willeit, Serge Leblon, David Uzochukwu, Karel Fonteyne. We also point out the Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam with the Dutch duo Schilte & Portielje and the South African Koto Bolofo, as well as the project between photography and video by Vincenzo Marsiglia of the Boesso gallery in Bolzano.
The works of artists linked to specific geographical areas will be brought to the public's attention: the Focus Hungary curated by Artmarket Budapest, with 4 Budapest galleries: Várfok Gáleria – with the artist Peter Korniss – TOBE, Inda Gáleria and MyMuseum, as well Mizerak Foundation of Ozd.
Focus Balearic Islands, curated by Mónica Álvarez Careaga and supported by the Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics and Focus Africa, represented by Siwa Mgoboza with Semaphore gallery in Neuchâtel, by South African artist Andrew Tshabangu and Congolese artists Gosette Lubondo with L' Agence à Paris, Maurice Mbikayi, as well as the Namibian Kyle Weeks and the Moroccan Mounir Fatmi, presented by Officine dell'Immagine of Milan; Focus Cuba, a multi-year project that will also be developed in future editions by the Isolo17 gallery, starring Gabriel Guerra Bianchini, Yuri Limonte and Jorge Otero.
Among the various exhibition proposals, we highlight that of the new Still Young gallery in Milan dedicated to photography, which aims to support young artists between the ages of 18 and 25, also operating as a cultural incubator and which will exhibit Gaia Squarci with a series of photographs on Stromboli (Stromboli, Iddu), Marta Giaccone with a project on Procida (Return to Arthur's Island) and Carlo Alberto Giardina (Finnycar). The Art D2 gallery in Milan will present a solo show by Mimmo Dabbrescia, AnzenbergerGallery in Vienna with a collective exhibition of artists including Katie Kalkstein, Fifty Dots in Barcelona with César Ordoñez and Irene Cruz.
Flux Laboratory in Geneva also deserves particular attention, which will offer a solo exhibition by Aurélie Mathigot which also includes an ad hoc installation project and a collateral event in the city at the Bag – Bocconi Art Gallery in the historic location via Sarfatti.
Kourd Gallery in Athens will exhibit works by Costantinos Sofikitis and Petros Sofikitis, Lele Gallery in Shanghai will present Guan Yiming and Liu Weihua, Magic Beans in Berlin with the Korean Seungmo Park together with Tom Hoops and Valentina Murabito, Photo 12 Galerie in Paris with Marshall Vernet and Kacper Kowalski, Podbielsky Contemporary in Berlin with Shadi Ghadirian, Thomas Jorion and the Spazio Nuovo gallery project with Edouard Taufenbach and his homage to the famous private collection of original vernacular photographs on the theme of the body and family by director Sebastien Lifshitz. Boxart of Verona will exhibit an offer of important historical authors such as Hermann Nitsch and Mario Schifano, up to national and international contemporaries, such as Mauro Fiorese, Franco Fontana, Gao Brothers and the unpublished works of Liu Bolin. Bel Air Fine Art in Venice will propose Antoine Rose, Christian Voigt and Cecile Plaisance, mc2gallery in Milan with Casper Faassen, Patricio Reig and Justine Tjallinks.
Since the first edition, one of the most awaited appointments of MIA Photo Fair has been Proposta MIA, the section dedicated to independent photographers selected by the scientific committee, who present themselves to the world of galleries and to the public.
Among these, we note the great return of Graziella Vigo, one of the best known and celebrated Italian authors abroad with a large number of photographic exhibitions from New York to Moscow, who has been absent from Italy for some time, who exhibits 2 projects, the first entitled "PORTRAIT" on portraits of great famous people and the second entitled "VERDI ON STAGE", extraordinary moments captured during performances of Verdi's operas in the greatest theaters of the world, starting from the Teatro Alla Scala, or the Swiss Beat Kuert, famous director and multimedia artist with an unprecedented photographic project or Edilio Livio Alpini with his moving works that photograph matter, developing a connection between physics and art.
Over time, Proposta MIA has turned out to be a real resource for the authors presented, allowing many of them to become part of the stable of prestigious galleries.
This year the cultural program will be particularly rich. Among the various proposals, the meetings on psychoanalysis and collecting stand out, which are part of the new format based on the relationship between Art and Science, curated by Chiara Agagiù, with the participation of teachers, researchers and critics such as Massimo Recalcati, Stefano Ferrari, Mimmo Pesare and Giovanni Fiorentino.
Among the appointments of the cultural program the following are also worth mentioning: 1) the meetings of Collection for two, in which the journalist Sabrina Donadel will interview pairs of collectors united not only by love, but also by the passion for photography; 2) the conversation on the change of the photography tool in photojournalism and advertising Aesthetics and Culture which will see Edward Rozzo and Mario Cresci discuss the aesthetic value of the image in the photographic project also for commercial use; 3) the lecture by Pino Musi and Antonello Scotti who will propose the analysis of some artist's photographic books, where text and images interact creating unexpected relationships.
Remaining on the subject of books, the area dedicated to publishing will be completely renovated, with exhibitors selected by the curator Magali Avezou of Archipelago in London, who will offer international publishing houses, independent publishers and specialized bookstores.
MIA Photo Fair 2018 received the Patronage of the Lombardy Region, the Metropolitan City of Milan and the Municipality of Milan and the contribution of the Main Sponsors BNL Group BNP Paribas and Lavazza, the Sponsors Eberhard & Co., the Partner iQOS and the IULM University , of the Technical Sponsors Kartell, Ciaccio Arte, Hotel Principe di Savoia and of the Media Partners Arte, AD, 100 Words Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, Artforbes, Art Africa Magazine, Artfacts.net, Artprice, Artribune, Gente di Fotografia, GUP Magazine, The Fashionable Lampoon, Photography is Art, PHROOM, #59 magazine, Espoarte, Haute Photographie Magazine, Il Giornale dell'Architettura, Il Giornale dell'Arte, Juliet, The Elephant.
MIA Photo Fair, with the Patronage of the Lombardy Region, the Metropolitan City of Milan and the Municipality of Milan and the contribution of the Main Sponsors BNL Group BNP Paribas and Lavazza and the Sponsor Eberhard & Co., presents itself for the first time with a coordinated image entrusted to an artist: the South African Siwa Mgoboza (Cape Town, 1993), selected in collaboration with the Lagos Photo Festival.
Image: Siwa Mgoboza. Les Etres d'Africadia I Serpentina Jonza. Photo Print. 59.4 x 42 & 180 x 144cm. Ed of 10 + 3AP
