Bologna, ART CITY 2022 arrives: here is the program of the tenth edition

The tenth edition of ART CITY Bologna, the institutional program of exhibitions, events and special initiatives promoted by the Municipality of Bologna in collaboration with BolognaFiere, which returns to enliven the weekend of Arte Fiera, Italy’s longest-running modern and contemporary art fair, will be held from January 20 to 23, 2022. Coordinated by the Modern and Contemporary Art Area of the Istituzione Bologna Musei under the artistic direction of Lorenzo Balbi, the program of ART CITY 2022 confirms the format already experimented in the last three editions, with a Main Program articulated in a Special Project and a series of curatorial projects presenting the most diverse contemporary art practices. The calendar will also span the proposals of museums, foundations, institutional spaces, Ascom galleries, exhibition spaces and independent galleries in the city.

In a scenario characterized by the outcomes of the pandemic crisis, ART CITY Bologna 2022 starts from a necessary redefinition of the ways in which public space is shared and a reflection on the changing dynamics of interpersonal relationships. The works will extend into site-specific actions, exhibitions and installations that will inhabit both usual and unusual places, generating narratives and new interactions. Among the most distinctive features of ART CITY Bologna there has always been the intent to bring to the attention of a wide audience places that are often not deputed to art (among the most interesting, rarely accessible or unknown in the city), rediscovered by the interventions of artists invited to relate to their specific identities. Also in this edition, the contexts of action will range from the most diverse types: from Piazza Maggiore and Palazzo d’Accursio, to historic palaces of great charm converted into cultural spaces such as Alchemilla in Palazzo Vizzani, the Oratory of San Filippo Neri, the Ex Chiesa Teatro San Leonardo, the Teatro delle Moline in Palazzo Bentivoglio, and Villa delle Rose, the external headquarters of MAMbo, to precious architectural treasures such as the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau built to a design by Le Corbusier and the Valverde Preserve (Bagni di Mario), for the first time included in the Main Program of the event, with its spectacular Renaissance-era cistern built to feed the famous Neptune Fountain. The 2022 edition will also be marked by a wider and more polycentric territorial dimension that will extend the widespread constellation of events to the metropolitan area, with routes as far as Calderara di Reno, Marzabotto, Riola di Vergato, San Giorgio di Piano and San Lazzaro di Savena.

As for the 2021 edition, the conception and development of the visual identity were entrusted to artists Filippo Tappi and Marco Casella, who started from the star, a graphic sign that guided visitors in 2021 along with Peter Pan, which this year trembles, fades, and multiplies. The background of ART CITY 2022 is Bologna itself, seen as a galaxy in which everything happens: an agglomeration of iridescent planets, pulsating stars, dark matter, dust, dancing undisturbed to the astronomical rhythm. The star is declined into a series of shapes and colors that change in frequency, accompanying it to an explosion, an evanescent glow, an engine of transformation. It is followed by a living, organic being, reiterating the variety of the world of signs, a being with softer lines, carrying with it the muffled sounds of marine environments. The last element of the visual identity is the wake of a journey at the speed of light, in which signs begin to multiply and merge with the background.

The program of curatorial projects

ART CITY’s 2022 program features nine curatorial Main Projects, produced and realized specifically for the event and constructed in relation to the places that host them. Emerging artists such as Elisa Caldana and Aki Nagasaka, Kipras Dubauskas, Mattia Pajè, Agnes Scherer, Emilia Tapprest, and Dominique White are flanked by more established names such as Giulia Niccolai (the only non-living artist included in the Main Program) and Italo Zuffi, to international names such as Carlos Garaicoa, as well as Tino Sehgal. The focus on Italian art, in continuity with the choices pursued by Simone Menegoi’s artistic direction for Arte Fiera, is accompanied by contamination and openness to artists of international origin.

A transversal element that characterizes the projects of the tenth edition is the prevalence of the experiential dimension of the work, in which it is action that redefines spaces through bodies, a dimension present especially in Tino Sehgal’s Special Project, but also in other projects. It certainly is for the exhibition dedicated to Giulia Niccolai, Why I Do It Because. The Poetic Life of Giulia Niccolai at the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau, curated by Allison Grimaldi Donahue and Caterina Molteni, promoted by MAMbo, in which the artist’s poetic, visual, and sonic research is reconstructed and reactivated thanks to a new performative work by Tomaso Binga and Giulia Crispiani. The performative element also returns in Agnes Scherer’s The Teacher, promoted by MAMbo and curated by Caterina Molteni, for the first time presented in Bologna at Teatro delle Moline, exceptionally revisited and interpreted in Italian, as well as in Zhouwéi Network by Emilia Tapprest at Teatro San Leonardo, an immersive video installation and live performance curated by Felice Moramarco, which through the medium of film explores the relationship between datafication, political power and individual affective experiences, promoted by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, I-Portunus and Stimuleringsfonds, in collaboration with DEMO Moving Image Experimental Politics and Adiacenze. Experiencing space through actions that redefine it and generate narratives is also a peculiar trait of Italo Zuffi ’s research to which is dedicated Front and Back, a solo exhibition curated by Lorenzo Balbi and Davide Ferri that is spread over two venues, the Sala delle Ciminiere of MAMbo that offers a retrospective path from the mid-1990s to 2020, and the Sala Convegni of Palazzo De’ Toschi where a series of new productions will be on view. The exhibition is sponsored by MAMbo and Banca di Bologna.

The theme of site-specificity, another cornerstone of ART CITY’s identity, emerges in Times of Crisis, an exhibition by Elisa Caldana and Aki Nagasaka, curated by Giulia Pezzoli presented at Villa delle Rose and promoted as part of the ROSE Residencies Program, in which dialogue is established not only with the eighteenth-century exhibition venue but with the entire city of Bologna through an existential thread that links it to Tokyo. Finding its place in the spaces of Sala Tassinari, managed by Fondazione per l’Innovazione Urbana at Palazzo d’Accursio, Emergency Break by Kipras Dubauskas, a video installation curated by Elisa Del Prete and Silvia Litardi, promoted by NOS Visual Art production in collaboration with Home Movies, Lithuanian Cultural Institute and Sandra Natali Artist Residency, which presents the trilogy dedicated to “rescue” developed by the Lithuanian artist starting in 2019 and whose last chapter will be realized in Bologna. Instead, it is Carlos Garaicoa who is the protagonist of the interaction with the space of the Oratory of San Filippo Neri, a place much loved by the public of ART CITY, with an installation curated by Maura Pozzati, promoted by Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna in collaboration with Galleria Continua, through which the Cuban artist intends to approach the history of the Oratory, recalling its destruction and restoration. Again, the historic rooms of Palazzo Vizzani, on the occasion of ART CITY, will be inhabited by Fuori Terra, an exhibition by Mattia Pajè curated by Giovanni Rendina, promoted by MAMbo and Alchemilla in collaboration with Associazione BOCA and Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, a sculptural group composed of humanoid figures immersed in an installation environment. Finally, it is an underground dimension, in which a silent transition seems to have just taken place, that created by Dominique White with Fugitive of the State(less) in the evocative spaces of the Conserva di Valverde, an installation curated by Giulia Colletti and promoted by MAMbo, which dialogues with the aquiferous universe of Bagni di Mario.

As for the Special Project of ART CITY 2022, Tino Sehgal, one of the most radical artists to emerge in recent years, Golden Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, has been invited. His works are authentic living sculptures, choreographies of people in motion that generate unusual, sometimes surreal situations with which the public is invited to confront. The intervention, curated by Lorenzo Balbi, which the artist conceived and designed specifically for Piazza Maggiore (for centuries a place of encounter and exchange, surrounded by medieval palaces and the imposing Basilica of San Petronio) will see the participation of 45 dancers and performers, whose bodies and gestures will be used by Sehgal as artistic and human material to compose a large work, a unique opportunity to experience art in terms of a social experience of mutual exchange. The heart of Bologna will thus serve as a backdrop for the bodies of the performers, who will move in the same space as the audience, who will become both the user and also the protagonist of this human choreography, rich in references to history and the past. Sehgal’s is an art without objects: indeed, at the basis of his work is a deep reflection on the value and space of art seen and experienced as a direct and physical experience of the work; as an exercise that does not involve documentation or reproduction of any kind. His goal is to subvert the economic and processual systems associated with the art industry, creating true counter-models of situations that arise and vanish without leaving physical traces to be sold on the market, but only experiences for the public to experience.

ART CITY in the city’s museums

ART CITY will also be animated by Bologna’s widespread cultural system. Numerous initiatives will contribute to the coordinated programming of museums, foundations and institutional, public and private spaces: the conversations with the artists of ARTalk CITY at theAcademy of Fine Arts of Bologna; the pictorial meditations of Lucia Lamberti and Lorenzo Puglisi exhibited in the headquarters of the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia-Romagna Region, respectively, with exhibitions entitled In un tempo brevissimo and Pittura nera, curated by Sandro Malossini; the tribute to the painter and poet Francesco Giuliari (1929-2010) at Casa Saraceni on the occasion of the donation of paintings and engravings to the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna, curated by Angelo Mazza and Mirko Nottoli; Susana Ljuljanovic’s solo exhibition Song for invisible garden curated by Artierranti Associazione culturale at the Cassero - LGBTI+ Center; the painting, sculpture, multimedia and performance installations that, under the collective title Ri-pARTEnze - New visions of possible futures, will present the projects of the students of the Liceo Artistico Arcangeli of Bologna at the Centro Studi Didattica delle Arti; the fifth edition of das - dialoghi artistici sperimentali promoted by CUBO Museo d’impresa del Gruppo Unipol with the double solo exhibition das. 05. mutations. Le metamorfosi sintetiche di fuse* e di Francesca Pasquali curated by Federica Patti; the imaginary dialogue with Carlo Gajani and Gianni Celati by Orecchie D’Asino, a young duo of female artists composed of Ornella De Carlo and Federica Porro, in the site-specific installation with performance DUEDUO curated by Luca Monaco and Giuseppe Virelli for the Carlo Gajani Foundation; the group exhibition LIBERO SPAZIO LIBERO, with works by Martha Rosler, Giulia Niccolai, Lucy Orta, Claudia Losi and Claire Fontaine, in the exhibition venue of the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna curated by Fabiola Naldi; at MAMbo the remounting of the historic section dedicated to Performance in the permanent collection, curated by Uliana Zanetti; the presentation of the first new acquisitions made possible by funding from the Trust for Contemporary Art; and WINTER, NOW, sound restitution of a collective reflection on the meaning of winter in contemporaneity curated by resident web radio station NEU Radio; a new exhibition project produced by Fondazione MAST; the multi-millennial reconnaissance of the artistic use of ’faïence’ ceramics in Faïence - Faenza. From Ancient Egypt to the Contemporary at the Museo Civico Archeologico, which concludes with an ErmEstEtica statue by Luigi Ontani, curated by Daniela Picchi and Valentina Mazzotti.

Also, Concerning Dante - Autonomous Cell by Jacopo Valentini at the Museo Civico Medievale, a photographic project linked to Dante’s imaginary through the poet’s real-life travels and literary ones through his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, curated by Carlo Sala; the site-specific pictorial intervention FRESCO operated by Davide D’Elia in dialogue with the collections of the Davia Bargellini Museum, curated by Silvia Litardi; the reflection on memory that Luca Moscariello brings to the Jewish Museum of Bologna with the installation Puzzle curated by Alice Zannoni; the photographic investigation Batedo by Stefano Laddomada through the natural landscape, urban planning and the water system that characterizes the territories at the Opificio delle acque, curated by Federica Fiumelli; at theOpificio Golinelli the sensory scientific representation installation Cronòtopo by Michelangelo Penso and the exhibition of performances and installations Le parole e il vento, chasing kites by contemporary visual artists, poets, scientists, storytellers, actors and musicians; the solo exhibition Di memorie e di innesti - Nello spirito, curated by Monica Zaghi, which develops Nunzio Paci’s research on the body and its anatomical structure in the project False Memories, dedicated to the figure of Luigi Calori, in two stages at theOratorio di San Giuseppe (San Giorgio di Piano) and at the Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences of the University of Bologna; the exhibition Wolfango’s Dante with unpublished works pertaining to the Divine Comedy created in the 1960s by the Bolognese painter Wolfango Peretti Poggi exhibited at theOratory and Museum of Santa Maria della Vita, curated by Alighiera Peretti Poggi and Laura Pasquini; the special Palazzo Bonasoni Art Collection Week visits to admire the recently acquired works of contemporary art of the Emilia-Romagna Region, set up in the rooms of the historic Palazzo Bonasoni and curated by the Cultural Heritage Service of the Emilia-Romagna Region; the group show Les Filons Géologiques at Palazzo d’Accursio, curated by BHMBo (Black History Month Bologna) and BHMF (Black History Month Florence), which offers an international cross-section of contemporary Afro-descendant art through the works of 13 artists; the solo exhibition Weaving the Life of Sidival Fila, a Franciscan Friar Minor of Brazilian origin, who for many years now has made artistic adventure his vocation, presented in relation to the specific identity of the Lercaro Collection, curated by Andrea Dall’Asta S.I. and Francesca Passerini; “IN AND OUT” Exhibition of the Winners of the Zucchelli 2020-2021 Competitions at Zu.Art giardino delle arti di Fondazione Zucchelli, featuring the productions of the outstanding Students of the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Winners of the Zucchelli 2020-2021 Competitions, curated by Carmen Lorenzetti.

In addition to MAMbo and Villa delle Rose, the remaining venues of the Modern and Contemporary Art Area (Museo Morandi, Casa Morandi, and Museo per la Memoria di Ustica) will also be open with extended hours to allow ART CITY audiences, including those from outside Bologna, to visit them at their convenience. From January 18 to 24, 2022, the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna brings art back to the big screen with ART CITY Cinema, programming dedicated to the fertile intersections between art and cinema. The path of visions includes auteur portraits (Man Ray/Picasso, Nino Migliori, Moholy-Nagy, Banksy and Bill Traylor, a self-taught painter born a slave) and artist films (the dreamlike Undream 2022, the enigmatic Redoubt, the performative Au revoir Joseph Gallieni and Bill Morrison’s found footage). And finally The Man Who Sold His Skin, a daring reflection on the limits of art and freedom.

Also, for younger audiences, on Saturday, January 22, the MAMbo Education Department offers Walk on Art a special itinerary aimed at families with children ages 6 to 11. The walk includes a visit to some of the most curious and engaging exhibitions and installations among those promoted by ART CITY Bologna 2022, to discover artistic looks and practices with the help of a specialized museum educator. Also on Saturday, Jan. 22, Opificio Golinelli will offer Art, Science and Tech Day, workshops between art, science and technology for girls and boys ages 7 to 10 and 11 to 13 to explore the relationship and connections between creative artistic languages, science and technology.

ART CITY in independent galleries and exhibition spaces.

Prominent protagonists of the art week in Bologna will also be the modern and contemporary art galleries associated with Confcommercio Ascom Bologna, with exhibition proposals ranging from great Italian figurative art of the 20th century to excellent international artists and authors from our territory. Below are the exhibitions that will be on view.

AF Gallery solo exhibition by Stefano Peroli Figure nel paesaggio curated by Claudio Musso; Di Paolo Arte solo exhibition by Franco Tosi Defrazioni curated by Beatrice Buscaroli; Cinquantasei Art Gallery group exhibition Sorgere. After the pandemic: art tomorrow, today and yesterday; Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m Giorgio Morandi and Bertozzi & Casoni. Less is more curated by Alessia Calarota; Galleria de’ Foscherari Sophie Ko. The rest of the earth; Galleria Enrico Astuni Reality, the languages with works by Maurizio Cattelan, Maurizio Mochetti, Maurizio Nannucci, Giulio Paolini, Agnieszka Polska, Rafaël Rozendaal, Tomás Saraceno, Nedko Solakov, in the context of which will be organized the presentation of the exhibition book moderated by Fabio Cavallucci with critics, curators and special guests; Galleria Forni solo exhibition of Massimo Kaufmann From the Periodic System; Gallleria Più proposes the exhibition dialogue The Garden of Trust: The Phenomenology of the Invisible. Visual correspondence between Katy Horna and Gluklya; Galleria Stefano Forni (title pending); Galleria Studio G7 solo exhibition by Marilisa Cosello Try with performance Try #5; L’ARIETE artecontemporanea one man show by Paolo Migliazza Raduno curated by Giorgia Bergantin; LABS Contemporary Art group exhibition Redesigning Space with works by Massimo Vitali, Andreas Gefeller, Giulia Marchi and Marina Caneve curated by Angela Madesani; P420 exhibition in collaboration with Davide Ferri and Associazione per Filippo de Pisis, Milan Di semplicità e di brivido. Filippo de Pisis in dialogue with Richard Aldrich, Michael Berryhill, Luca Bertolo, Paul Housley, Merlin James, Mairead O’hEocha, Maaike Schoorel.

In the rich program of ART CITY there will be no shortage of exhibitions and other initiatives set up in the most diverse types of galleries and independent exhibition spaces, which every year animate Bologna, transforming it into a theater of the most diverse contemporary practices. Currently confirmed are: Adiacenze (Federica di Pietrantonio and Andrea Frosolini); ARTOO (Elisa Muliere, Karin Andersen); Atelier Sì (Simone Pellegrini), ATTITUDES_spazio alle arti (Matteo Guidi); Bar Vittorio Emanuele (Flavio Favelli); Casa della Cultura “Italo Calvino,” Calderara di Reno (Stefano Pasquini); Casa della Cultura e della Memoria (Marzabotto), Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta, Riola di Vergato (Jacques Toussaint); CorrainiMAMbo artbookshop (Daniel Eatock); DAS - Experimental Arts Device (Lele Marcojanni / ZimmerFrei); Gallery B4 (Anna Rosati / Anuar Arebi); Fireplace Art Gallery (Claudio Nicoli); Gallery Cavour (Michelangelo Pistoletto); Green Whale Space and Spazio B5 ( Laura Bessega and Laura Frasca); Home Movies c/o Sala Refettorio Ex Convento San Mattia (Fabio Giorgi Alberti); Kappa-Noun, San Lazzaro di Savena(Mario Schifano), LabOratorio degli Angeli (Sissi); Lavì! City (Gaia Volonterio); LOCALEDUE (Davide Sgambaro); Maison Ventidue c/o Piazza San Domenico (Riccardo Bellelli); Marktstudio c/o Il Perimetro dell’Arte (Letizia Calori); Mock Jungle c/o Cappella di Santa Maria dei Carcerati (Matteo Pizzolante); mtn | temporary museum navile (Alcide Fontanesi); Museo Spazio Pubblico (Michele Liparesi); Off Gallery (Victor Fotso Nyie); OTTO Gallery (Davide Benati); Nelumbo Open, Bologna / TIST, Rastignano (Sofia Braga / Cathleen Owens); Parsec (Guendalina Cerruti, Francesco Hayez, Sathyan Rizzo); PhMuseum Lab (Sayuri Ichida); Polaroiders (Alan Marcheselli, Alessia Amati, Felicita Russo, Paolo Ferruzzi, Rocco Carnevale, Serena Biagini, Solimano Pezzella, Ong Ngoc Phuong); Senzaspine | Cultural Center Mercato Sonato (Michele Liparesi); Shazar Gallery c/o Church of Santa Maria and San Valentino della Grada (Lello Lopez); SimonBart Gallery (Leonardo Cremonini); Sonic Belligeranza MEGASTORE + MODO Infoshop (Xong collection - artist records presents: Giampiero Cane / Daniela Cattivelli ); Sof:Art (Filippo Cegani); Spazio Labo’ Photography (Ahndraya Parlato); Teatri di Vita (Filippo Partesotti).

White Night

For art lovers who wish to diversify their itinerary in a myriad of proposals and spaces and concentrate it on the evening of Saturday, January 22, ART CITY White Night is back, the invasion of contemporary art in the city with exhibitions, performances, events in public, private and commercial spaces. White Night is organized by BolognaFiere as part of ART CITY Bologna 2022 and in collaboration with Bologna’s commercial and cultural operators. To join you can report your event on the website artefiera.it.

Useful information

Information on the program will be declined in two different editorial formats, also curated in visual design by Filippo Tappi and Marco Casella, to be carried with you at all times to be accompanied on your own personal journey during the days of the event and kept at the end. The booklet guide, edited by Lorenzo Balbi, Caterina Molteni and Sabrina Samorì, will contain curatorial texts and descriptions of the places on the Main Program, in a bilingual Italian/English version, and will be available at Main Project venues. For orientation on all the events included in the program, a map in Italian will be available, distributed in all the venues of the ART CITY Bologna 2022 circuit, in the tourist information and welcome points of Bologna Welcome (Piazza Maggiore, “Guglielmo Marconi” International Airport arrivals area, FICO Italy World) and in the pavilions of Arte Fiera. The full program of ART CITY Bologna 2022 will be published near the exhibition on the website artcity.bologna.it.

Bologna, ART CITY 2022 arrives: here is the program of the tenth edition

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