Genoa celebrates 20 years of START with a double white night dedicated to contemporary art

On October 3 and 4, 2025, Genoa will host the 20th edition of START, the contemporary art event that has marked the beginning of the city’s exhibition season for two decades. To celebrate the anniversary, twenty-seven galleries in the historic center will open their doors with a double white night: Friday until midnight and, new this year, Saturday until 10 p.m. The initiative will transform the caruggi into a widespread itinerary among painting, sculpture, installations, video and photography, offering the public the chance to experience art in a direct and participatory way. Exhibitions opened during the two days will remain open for a month, allowing visitors to delve into new trends and engage with works by established artists and emerging voices.

The galleries participating in the 2025 edition are: ABC-ARTE, Archivio Caterina Gualco, Galleria Arte Studio - Il Basilisco, Artroom, Campo XS, Casana 11, C+N Gallery CANEPANERI, Daniele Comelli Art Gallery, Merighi Art Gallery, Il Vicolo Art Gallery, Galleria San Lorenzo al Ducale, GUIDI Arte Contemporanea, Guidi&Schoen, Archivio Leonardi V.idea, MAGREEN GALLERY, MAIIIM Lab, Martini & Ronchetti, Massone Arte, Pinksummer Contemporary Art, PRIMO PIANO of Palazzo Grillo,RARO by David Scott, Rossetti contemporary art, Sharevolution c.a., SpazioUnimedia, Stella Rouskova Gallery, VisionQuesT 4Rosso and Willy Montini Arte.

“START has accompanied Genoa for 20 years with a simple but powerful intuition: to return the public space of contemporary art to the city, transforming our streets and buildings into a stage for creativity,” comments Genoa City Councilor for Culture Giacomo Montanari. “In this 20th edition, the double white night enhances the galleries and, at the same time, invites citizens and collectors to discover, experience and narrate art together. I thank the organizers who have made this possible, who have always stood by Genoa’s culture. START remains an engine of opportunity, inclusion and creative progress.”

“When we started thinking about a joint opening 20 years ago, we did not know how our initiative would be received. Today, in its twentieth edition, START has become an eagerly awaited event for the people of Genoa, not just art lovers,” emphasize Elisabetta Rossetti and Chico Schoen, START coordinators. “In addition to the exhibitions, which are always different and often surprising, the event is also an opportunity to rediscover the historic center, even for those who do not usually frequent it. Just as it happens during the Rolli Days, on this occasion parts of the ancient city can be explored, with the galleries becoming real windows on the contemporary and the future.”

The START 2025 itinerary opens at ABC-ARTE with the most comprehensive anthological exhibition dedicated to Gastone Biggi, curated by Flaminio Gualdoni. TheCaterina Gualco Archive, on the other hand, offers An Open House Exhibition: Fluxus & Co, which accompanies the public among unpublished works and testimonies by the protagonists of the Fluxus movement. Artroom presents In the Absence of Titles and Names, a project that brings together the abstract energy of artist Be Inko, while Campo XS hosts Rachele Montoro’s Tik Tok Chakra, curated by Laura Rositani, which transforms the exhibition space into a spiritual gymnasium and a critical reflection on the role of social media. Casana 11 offers the group show Scrigno Casana, a reflection on the theme of treasure as an inner and universal quest, while C+N Gallery CANEPANERI with Truths We Inherit puts into dialogue the pictorial languages of Deng Shiqing and MJ Torrecampo, two emerging voices on the international scene.

The journey continues at Daniele Comelli Art Gallery with Pop Society, an exhibition investigating the topicality of Pop Art, and at Arte Studio - Il Basilisco with Genova in Piazza, a tribute to the symbolic places of collective identity. Merighi Gallery offers Start Restart, a reflection on social transformations through new visual routes, while at Il Vicolo Art Gallery Valerio Di Fiore’s solo show, Dove il ricordo respira, explores the relationship between memory and identity. Galleria San Lorenzo al Ducale presents Vasto teatro è il mondo, where Bardhyl Alibali, Daniele Cestari, Jonathan Guaitamacchi and Enrico Musenich interpret urban visions with personal languages.

GUIDI Arte Contemporanea celebrates its 70th anniversary with I Tre volte Pop. Ita/Usa/Dicò, comparing the great protagonists of Italian Pop Art with Andy Warhol and Dicò. Guidi&Schoen presents Shaping the Monochrome, an exhibition that brings together works by Vincenzo Agnetti, Agostino Bonalumi, Riccardo Zappettini and Pablo Atchugarry in a reflection on painting and sculpture as forms of thinking about art itself. TheArchivio Leonardi V.idea dedicates a tribute to Antonio Porcelli with light the sign time, a journey through the most visionary moments of his research, while MAGREEN GALLERY offers the group show Stars talk to me, defined as a “small experiential atlas” that invites the viewer to look and listen.

At MAIIIM Lab, Samantha Stella’s anthology, curated by Virginia Monteverde, traces 20 years of experimentation between visual arts, performance, dance, directing, singing and writing. Martini & Ronchetti presents a selection of masters such as Lisetta Carmi, Florence Henri, Cesar Domela, Otto Hofmann and Luciano D’Alessandro, while Massone Arte exhibits the visual poetry of Pietro Perrone, focusing on new contaminations. Pinksummer Contemporary Art hosts Anonymous Collectors (Working Title), Anna Scalfi Eghenter’s first solo show, which explores the relationship between art, politics and society. PRIMO PIANO at Palazzo Grillo presents Ciro Battiloro’s Lo spazio del silenzio, a photographic tale of intimacy, resistance and humanity between Naples, Cosenza and Normandy, curated by Gianni Martini and Laura Garbarino.

RARO by David Scott features Wanna Look Good Naked by Katharina Arndt, which mocks the consumerist aesthetic of contemporary society in the digital age. Rossetti contemporary art exhibits Out of control by Julian T., a photographic project that captures the essence of the moment by transforming it into eternity. At Sharevolution Gallery, Marcela Cernadas ’ Botanical shyness invites us to rediscover a new way of inhabiting the world through listening, while SpazioUnimedia presents Federico Tilli’s Studi sul reale, a visual diary that observes the details of everyday life that are often overlooked.

Stella Rouskova Gallery proposes a journey through the works of international artists hosted over the years, while VisionQuesT 4Rosso presents ...e vide una Ninfa bella come un diamante by Luciano D’Inverno, a photographic project dedicated to the territory of Vesuvius and the Campi Flegrei. Closing the itinerary is Willy Montini Arte, which for the first time in Genoa is exhibiting 80 original etchings of Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War, accompanied by the works of Terry Atkinson, Nidaa Badwan and Paolo Ciregia, who also witness, like Goya, the horrors of conflict.

START, promoted by Genoa’s leading art galleries, in 20 years has become a reference point for modern and contemporary art and a well-established event in the city’s cultural calendar, involving art professionals, enthusiasts, artists and thousands of visitors. On Thursday, Oct. 2 and Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, from 12 noon to 6 p.m., an info point will be active in Piazza De Ferrari to illustrate the exhibition itinerary. In addition, on Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4, 2025, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., free guided tours will be held by Mike Lorefice, known as @Thebadguyde. Reservations can be made directly at the info point or by emailing start.genova@gmail.com.

Genoa celebrates 20 years of START with a double white night dedicated to contemporary art

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