1974-2024: in Bologna, Arte Fiera turns 50, several events scheduled

The Arte Fiera art fair complex in Bologna scheduled for Feb. 2 to 4 is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It was 1974 when BolognaFiere decided within its Fiera Campionaria event, to present a small section dedicated to modern and contemporary art consisting of just 10 galleries. By the following year, there were already 200. The 2024 program will therefore revisit episodes, personalities, and publications of those years, starting with the founding year, precisely 1974. In doing so, it will celebrate the 1970s in Bologna, an extraordinary season in which the city was at the forefront of visual arts, architecture, and imagining new forms of relationship between art, politics, and society. 1974-2024: it is such a significant anniversary that the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy will celebrate by issuing a special postage stamp. Arte Fiera also announces its partners: BPER Banca and Trust for Contemporary Art. BPER Banca strengthens its link with the event by becoming Main Partner of the 2024 edition, demonstrating its willingness to be at the forefront in promoting and supporting art and culture, in the belief that these elements are fundamental for the development of territories and for social inclusion. In addition to this, Trust for Contemporary Art, which establishes and manages a fund dedicated to the art of the present, will invest 30 thousand euros to acquire one or more works of Italian art from the 1950s to the present. The selection will be made by the Trust’s Public Collections Committee, composed of Sarah Cosulich, Chiara Parisi and Claudio Spadoni.

The fair will be held in the same location as last year’s edition (Bologna Fiere’s pavilions 25 and 26), and its collaborations will remain as they always have been, starting with the tandem of artistic director Simone Menegoi and Enea Righi, a manager and collector of international standing, as director of operations. A total of 196 exhibitors will participate with a return of art galleries such as Apalazzo Gallery, Laveronica, Lia Rumma, Lorenzelli Arte, Franco Noero, Ronchini, and Sprovieri. The Main Section of Arte Fiera, divided as always between historicized and contemporary art, will be joined by three curated sections: Photography and Moving Images, Pittura XXI and Multiples. Davide Ferri, critic and curator, is confirmed to curate Pittura XXI; Photography and Moving Images is entrusted for the second year to Giangavino Pazzola, curator of Camera - Centro italiano per la fotografia (Turin). Alberto Salvadori, critic and art historian will instead curate the Multiples section.

Alongside the curated sections, Percorso returns: an itinerary that connects a number of Main Section stands according to a thematic criterion. The theme of Percorso will be a universal language, uniting artists of different generations and languages: drawing. For the 2024 edition, Percorso is supported by a partner of excellence, linked to the Bologna area but known worldwide: Ducati. The motorcycle brand has chosen to marry a format that expresses an idea of mobility and dynamism and a theme, drawing, that includes the dimension of design, fundamental to its identity. On the occasion of the 50th edition of Arte Fiera, the ART CITY Bologna exhibition, curated for the seventh consecutive year by Lorenzo Balbi, director of MAMbo - Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, has chosen to pay homage to the most important modern artist born and lived in the city of Bologna, Giorgio Morandi (Bologna, 1890 - 1964) on the 60th anniversary of his death, proposing a program inspired by him. Five projects will explore and reinterpret the Maestro’s work through different languages of the contemporary: that of performance will be entrusted to Virgilio Sieni; that of photography will be represented by Joel Meyerowitz ’s shots exhibited inside the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte at Palazzo d’Accursio, in Morandi’ s objects: MORANDI’S BOOKS at the Museo Morandi; film, on the other hand, will be represented by artist Tacita Dean with the short film STILL LIFE. The studio of Giorgio Morandi, presented inside the new PIETRO space; while sound will feature Mark Vernon’s sound and live installation Saturnine Orbit. In addition, on Saturday, February 3, one of the most popular events among the public returns: the ART CITY White Night, which will allow the public to enjoy the artistic offerings at night as well, thanks to the collaboration of cultural and commercial operators who will extend the opening hours until midnight.

Public program and special projects

This year, Opus Novum, the commission to create an original work destined for a renowned Italian artist, has been given to Luisa Lambri, one of the most acclaimed Italian photographers with international recognition. Lambri chose to bring together in this commission two emblematic buildings of 1970s Bolognese architecture: the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Riola di Vergato, Bologna, and the Pavilion de L’Esprit Nouveau, a faithful replica of Le Corbusier’s 1920s ephemeral architecture, erected in 1977 at the entrance to the fairgrounds. From Aalto’s church, Lambri selected some unpublished images; while from the Pavilion de L’Esprit Nouveau, he drew inspiration to choose other shots from different stages of his career. These images will form an exhibition in the Pavilion, titled L’ Esprit Nouveau, which will be unveiled precisely at Arte Fiera 2024. During the event, the second part of the previous Opus Novum commission awarded to Alberto Garutti will also be revealed: a permanent plaque placed at the main entrance to the fairgrounds. On it will be engraved the words All the steps I have taken in my life have brought me here, now, in both Italian and English. The phrase poetically invites reflection on the conscious and unconscious choices, wills and randomness that have shaped everyone’s path through time and space. With this gesture, Arte Fiera pays tribute to one of the most influential Italian artists of the last fifty years, who recently passed away only a few months ago.

The collaboration between Arte Fiera and Fondazione Furla is renewed for the program of live actions curated by Bruna Roccasalva, Artistic Director of the Foundation. The protagonist of the new edition is Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz, who will create an unprecedented intervention entitled Tiro al Blanco. The installation, which will be activated by a performance of a participatory nature, aims to investigate the political, economic and cultural systems of power that govern the world. Performance has existed within the fair since the first editions: the 1976 edition, in particular, saw successive actions by artists such as Vincenzo Agnetti, Urs Lüthi, Hermann Nitsch, and Franco Vaccari. This is a little-known history on which the exhibition Practically Nothing to Sell casts a first glance. Performance at Arte Fiera in 1976, curated by Uliana Zanetti, curator of collections at MAMbo - Museum of Modern Art in Bo logna.Zanetti has succeeded, through repertory material, in significantly expanding the documentation of the 1976 performance program, drawing attention to still little-studied documents that illuminate aspects often overlooked in the history of performance. Another exhibition investigates the origins of the fair through the catalog of the first edition, edited by art historian Clarissa Ricci, Numero Zero. The first Arte Fiera catalog aligns enlarged reproductions of all the pages of this rare publication, allowing visitors to discover the ten galleries, all Italian, that were protagonists of the fair’s pilot edition. Produced in collaboration with ANGAMC - Associazione Nazionale Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (National Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries), and set up next to the Association’s lounge, the exhibition is accompanied by a chronology of Arte Fiera participations from 1974 to 1979, which in a novel way illustrates the development of Arte Fiera by highlighting its great cultural vitality and the fundamental contribution of the galleries.

The Book Talk series of conversations , curated by Guendalina Piselli, offers a program of presentations focused entirely on art books. With a full schedule of events, the public will have the opportunity to discover some of the most stimulating Italian titles recently published, or forthcoming, with the participation of critics, scholars and artists. Uliana Zanetti introduces La performance a Bologna negli anni ’70 (Edizioni MAMbo, 2023), an artistic language that is the subject of special interest on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Arte Fiera. Curator Francesco Zanot and artist Francesco Jodice present the volume West (Electa, 2023), catalog of the exhibition of the same name held at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. This volume documents seventy large-format color photographs taken by artist Francesco Jodice during his journey through eleven North American states, accompanying them with maps and historical and iconographic materials.

Curators Damiano Gullì and Davide Ferri, together with artist Sofia Silva, then present Pittura italiana oggi (Electa, 2023), the catalog of the exhibition of the same name held at the Milan Triennale. Through works created between 2020 and 2023 by one hundred and twenty artists, Pittura italiana oggi offers a vast overview of original interpretations of the contemporary. It also renews the collaboration with Mutina, a renowned brand with a solid affinity for contemporary art, which is participating in Arte Fiera 2024 with a special exhibition project dedicated to Maurizio Cattelan, entitled BECAUSE. In 1991, at the beginning of his artistic career, Cattelan chose to infiltrate Arte Fiera with an abusive booth. Thirty-three years later, in 2024, Mutina is proud to help create a stage for a new performance by the artist. With BECAUSE, Cattelan offers no definitive answers, but leaves the audience once again without certainty.

The awards

There are also several awards distributed by the Fair to gallery owners and artists: starting with the ANGAMC Lifetime Achievement Award, an acknowledgement of the history and activity of a gallery owner affiliated with the National Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries who, throughout his or her career, has demonstrated significant commitment to his or her role, achieving exceptional artistic, human and commercial achievements.Then there will be the BPER Bank 2024 Prize, an acquisition award dedicated to the enhancement of women’s issues regardless of the artist’s gender. It is part of a valuable path that the BPER Group has been pursuing for some time, geared toward inclusion and combating gender violence, combined with the promotion of culture and art among citizens. BPER will exhibit the winning work in one of its locations to offer visibility to the work and the artist. Also, the Collezione Righi Prize aims to acquire a work exhibited at Arte Fiera that will add to the collections of MAMbo - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bologna, focusing in particular on the work of the latest generations of Italian artists.

Aimed at artists under 40 is the Colophonarte Prize, which allows the winner to conceive and give to the press an artist’s book in a print run of 500 copies, accompanied by a special edition in a more limited number. Continuing on, the Marval Acquisition prize consists of an acquisition earmarked for the private collection that gives the prize its name, a residency offered to the awarded artist, and targeted communication on the collection’s network to give as much visibility as possible to the artist and the gallery of origin.Then there is theOfficina Arte Ducati Prize , linked to Percorso, the transversal format that connects the fair stands based on a thematic criterion. The jury will choose a work created in this medium destined for Ducati’s corporate collection based on criteria related to brand identity: speed, design research, innovation. There will also be the Osvaldo Licini by Fainplast award born from an idea of the Picena Contemporary Art Association in collaboration with the municipality of Ascoli Piceno, and the Fainplast group. One of the five finalists for the prize-now in its third edition and intended for an Italian artist whose main medium is painting-will be chosen at Arte Fiera in the Pittura XXI section.

Another award is the Rotary Prize, which is awarded to the most creative installation presented at Arte Fiera 2024, whether it is an artist’s creation or an overall booth installation. The prize, consists of several awards, such as the Rotary Prize Arte Fiera 2024 to the gallery, the Rotaract Bologna Special Prize, and the Andrea Sapone Rotary Club Bologna Valle del Samoggia Special Prize. Then, Studio Spada Partners renews its partnership with Arte Fiera for the third consecutive year through the Spada Partners Prize. The winning work will be acquired and permanently exhibited in the firm’s Milan offices, where a unique collection of contemporary art is set up that is accessible to both employees and clients. Finally, The Collectors.Chain Prize is a prize dedicated exclusively to photography, which in 2024 will reach its third edition. The selected work will become part of the Art Defender photography collection, confirming the company’s focus on this medium. Confirmed in the role of jury president is Walter Guadagnini, who will be assisted in choosing the winning work by a committee composed exclusively of collectors.

Practical information

Fair hours: special preview reserved for VIPs and the press on Thursday, Feb. 1 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Preview by invitation Thursday, Feb. 1 from 12 to 5 p.m. Vernissage by invitation Thursday, Feb. 1 from 5 to 9 p.m. Open to the public Feb. 2 to 4. Friday, Feb. 2 from 11 a.m. to noon VIP reserved, noon to 8 p.m. public opening. Saturday, Feb. 3 and Sunday, Feb. 4 open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

All admission tickets to Arte Fiera 2024 have been digitized. The Ticket Office at the Fair will be open only for tickets subject to discounts and conventions. One-day ticket € 27.00, Subscriptions: three days (1 admission per day) € 37.00, two days (1 admission per day) € 33.00. Children up to and including 10 years old: free admission. The purchase of the daily ticket entitles the holder to facilitated admission to all the museum venues of the Modern and Contemporary Art Area of Istituzione Bologna Musei and Genus Bononiae, as well as to the Main Projects involved in the ART CITY Bologna program, according to their respective opening times. For information see the Artefiera website.

1974-2024: in Bologna, Arte Fiera turns 50, several events scheduled

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