Can art be made without physical works? Luca Rossi's proposal for Art City Bologna

For this edition of Art City Bologna, the Luca Rossi collective has imagined a series of initiatives, starting with MAPENDO, an exhibition and performance project that is part of the program of Art City Bologna and White Night in conjunction with ArteFiera 2026. Curated by Luca Rossi, MAPENDO presents itself as an exhibition that deliberately foregoes the transportation and presence of physical works within the exhibition space, choosing to work exclusively through information management as an artistic and conceptual tool.

The project stems from a reflection on the role that information plays in our daily lives and in the construction of our perception of the world. Indeed, our experience of reality, individually and collectively, is increasingly determined by how information is produced, selected, organized and disseminated. MAPENDO takes this assumption as a starting point and translates it into an exhibition that asks the artists involved to conceive their intervention exclusively through the management of information, without providing for the introduction of objects, material works or traditional installations within the space.

A radical choice that does not deny, but rather emphasizes, the capacity of information to generate concrete and material consequences. Information management, in fact, is not an abstract or neutral action, but can affect behavior, social relations, urban spaces and cultural dynamics. MAPENDO moves precisely on this terrain, exploring the boundary between the immaterial and the real and questioning exhibition customs and the very concept of artwork.

The exhibition, titled MAPENDO - curated by Luca Rossi, can be visited from February 5 to 8, 2026 at Mapendo Offices on 1/2 Via Rizzoli, in the heart of Bologna. The opening to the public is part of the official calendar of Art City Bologna and White Night, confirming the dialogue between the project and the urban and cultural context of the city in one of the moments of greatest influx and international attention for contemporary art.

The artists involved are Cristian Bardelli, BigNick, Maurzio Cattelan, Roberta Conti, Eni Derhemi, Nick Disaster, Jim La, Mya Lurgo, Maurizio Mercuri, Pawel und Pavel and Luca Rossi himself. A heterogeneous group that contributes to the construction of a collective narrative based on informational interventions, actions, presences and conceptual devices, all united by the absence of a traditional physical work and the centrality of the information flow.

MAPENDO is not limited to the exhibition space, but is articulated in a series of performative actions that directly involve the public and take place in different symbolic places in the city, in relation to the main fair events. During ArteFiera 2026, performative actions by Luca Rossi are planned, with a rendezvous in Constitution Square, in front of the main entrance to the fair. The appointments are set for Friday, Feb. 6 at 5:30 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 7 at 4 p.m., with reservations required.

An additional performative action is scheduled as part of Booming Art Fair, meeting at 16 Via Santo Stefano, at Palazzo Isolani. Luca Rossi’s intervention is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7 at 7:15 p.m., again with reservations. These actions are configured as extensions of the exhibition and as moments of direct interaction, in which information management becomes a shared experience and practice situated in urban space.

Also within the program is LUCA ROSSI SOLO SHOW, entitled Alas + One of These Days, which takes place in Bologna as a further personal declination of the project. This is accompanied by a convivial moment that is an integral part of the initiative: dinner with Luca Rossi, scheduled for Friday, Feb. 6, starting at 7 p.m., with an aperitif and a la carte dinner at Uno di Questi Giorni restaurant in Bologna. Again, reservations are required and are made through direct contact.

MAPENDO is thus configured as a complex and layered project, combining group exhibition, performance actions, personal moments and informal meeting occasions. The choice not to carry physical works does not represent a subtraction, but a broadening of the artistic field, which shifts to relational, informational and processual dimensions.

The project is accompanied by an information and coordination activity curated by Sara Ceroni, a point of reference for the public and for reservations. Further details on the program and appointments are available online on the documenta.live platform, where MAPENDO is included among the official events of Art City Bologna and ArteFiera 2026.

Can art be made without physical works? Luca Rossi's proposal for Art City Bologna

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