Opinions

Reducing VAT on works: the art world's crocodile tears

The failure to decrease VAT is certainly a problem for the Italian art market, which is losing competitiveness with galleries from France, Germany and around the world. But this is not the pincer that suffocates the art market, especially if we think...
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Inside Michelangelo Pistoletto's resonance chamber.

There is an advertising poster from the 1980s, the advertisement for an American hairspray, in which Andy Warhol can be seen holding a spray can in his hands, albeit with a certain concentration: he is wearing his typical dark turtleneck, he is weari...
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Italy could be competitive in the international art market: here's how

Long times and bureaucratic uncertainties? Certainly yes: for example, the timeframe for obtaining a free circulation has lengthened, some offices devoted to export paperwork have been closed, and the parameters for defining constraints are subjectiv...
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On the ... postmodern rearrangement of the GAM in Turin: is this what we want from a museum today?

The Gallery of Modern Art (GAM) in Turin is not just any museum: it has been in existence for more than a century, is often proudly presented as the first public collection of modern art in Italy, and houses one of the richest and most comprehensive ...
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The ancient art market must open up to sharing and dialogue

Starting a reflection around the art market today, in our contemporary times, is a far from simple matter. First of all, we need to call into question the very, sociological meaning of buying and selling works of art, a meaning that has its roots in ...
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What do art and the art system do in the face of the world's problems?

The art system is entrenched above ivory towers and artists are forced to produce harmless and reassuring interior furniture, what I called in 2009 evolved IKEA. There is now a fair a week and there are only "gathering" places, there are no longer pl...
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How art communication on social media has changed (and where it is going)

First, some data provided by the Digital 2024 Global Overview Report by We Are Social and Meltwater. First: the average time we spend on social each day has nearly doubled in the past decade. Second: in 2013 we spent 26.3% of the time we spend online...
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The decline of NFTs. Art or financial speculation?

In recent years, the Non-Fungible Token ( NFT ) phenomenon has rocked the art world like a bolt from the blue, bringing with it promises of revolution, democratization, and new creative frontiers. Today, however, we find ourselves reflecting on the r...
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The idea of hosting the Mona Lisa in Lombardy makes no sense: no appeal from the Louvre to find a place for it

Let's be serious: there is no appeal for the search of a different location for the Mona Lisa, as the Lombardy Region's councillor for culture, Francesca Caruso, implied in a note this morning. No one at the Louvre has yet dreamed of asking for help,...
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The other side of the futurism exhibition: GNAM emptied, library and archives closed

The current exhibition at Gnam, or Gnam/c, in Rome, Il Tempo del Futurismo, is probably the most talked about temporary exhibition in Italy in recent decades, and it is unlikely to be surpassed soon. It was talked about at the time of the announceme...
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Curators are now the real artists, and artists are weak. But this needs to be reversed

As has been the case for many years for the "elected" curator on duty, the newly appointed curator of the Venice Biennale 2026 International Art Exhibition, Koyo Kouoh, is presented as if she were a super-director, a super-author, but in reality the ...
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Decolonization and museums: a political and economic as well as a cultural problem

Decolonization is a product of the contradictions of a postcolonial society struggling to find points of contact between conquerors and conquered, in a contemporary context that demands a critical analysis of the history of European imperialist power...
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Cultural decolonization: it is not just returning museum works, it is a change of political perspective

Cultural decolonization is a process that is not only about objects and artifacts and, therefore, specific choices of museums and cultural institutes, but refers to a change of political perspective that questions the hierarchies between cultures, th...
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Ancient art exhibitions in Italy are of the highest level. But on contemporary art...

What indications can be gleaned from Finestre Sull'Arte's ranking of the best exhibitions of 2024? This year, for the first time, our magazine has decided to embark on a novel operation: entrusting a jury of more than a hundred insiders with the task...
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The best and worst of contemporary art 2024 according to Luca Rossi

For several years there has been little point in doing the classic "best of" referring to contemporary art. This is because we have been going through, for at least fifteen to twenty years, a neo-mannerist and transitional phase. Lists, with the best...
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Should Rai do more to broadcast art on the three main channels?

It is not comforting that the Christmas appointment with Alberto Angela is in danger of becoming a tradition, assuming that the popular popularizer has not already entered by popular acclaim among the characters of the holiday pantheon, along with Sa...
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