Let's start again! Miart 2021 between expectations and hopes

After the summer interlude, after the Salone del mobile and Design week, with some apprehension about possible new restrictions, MIART opens its doors in attendance with just under 150 galleries, most of them Italian, as was easy to predict, and events and exhibitions are inaugurated in the various spaces in Milan.

One enters with a sense of anticipation and moderate hope that this edition represents a rebirth.

The linear and airy layout of the booths aids a calm, thoughtful visit, and allows for a decidedly slower observation of the works, compared to the turnouts we all remember before the long period of abstinence and long phone calls we underwent to maintain a semblance of normalcy.

Of course: the pandemic has only overwhelmingly torn open the veil of a systemic crisis that had long been evident in all spheres of culture, referred to as a “crisis” though in reality a true recession, with the dominance of auctions internationally and an ever-widening gap between careful and rigorous collecting and the eagerness to grab brands, whatever they produce, for those termed billions, the increasingly rich super-rich who buy works by artists over the phone that cost as much as football players, perhaps even more.

Yet, with the acquired awareness that recognizes new markets globally, at this fair one has the opportunity to admire real gems, curiosities, and interesting works by important historical artists, definitely present to a greater extent than contemporaries. The relationship between quality design objects, paintings, sculptures and installations is also well conducted, in that reciprocal relationship that was also seen in design week. Interesting, finally, is the diversity in the use of materials and techniques, wide-ranging, with compelling surprises for artists who are not exactly popular today and who instead deserve to be rediscovered.

Beyond the outcomes that I hope will be of great satisfaction to gallery owners (a fair is still a fair), personally, just as it was for the fuori salone a week ago, this moment of encounters and live works fills me with boyish happiness. Yes, because we could take no more, at least as far as I think of it, of the often amateur videos describing the paths of the exhibitions, with relative focus on the individual work, with voice acting off-screen and otherwise, that had crowded our PCs in the previous months. Of course, it was the only way to let people know they existed, even if the time to see the works could not just be pre-established by a video camera with flooded explanations of the various poetics, in a kind of simulated perceptual intimacy.

Let us all hope that this is indeed the beginning of the recovery, with Art Basel just around the corner (despite fears of a ban on Astrazeneca inoculates), and that culture can take a leap forward to the collective satisfaction of all those involved. Of course, nothing will, perhaps, be the same as before, but who knows, it may be good news.

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