Artissima (Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino for completists) returned final week with a roster of 176 collaborating galleries to the Oval Lingotto Fiere—initially constructed for the velocity skating competitions of the 2006 Olympic Winter Video games—in an industrial district of Turin. It’s a metropolis the place modern artwork has lengthy set the tempo for cultural innovation throughout Italy. The primary modern artwork museum in Italy, Castello di Rivoli, was established right here in 1984, 10 years previous to the launch of Artissima. The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opened nearly concurrently with the honest’s debut, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM) was already flourishing. Artissima took place as a market platform, however equally functioned as a complement to those budding establishments.
The honest was directed for the fourth yr by Luigi Fassi, who nonetheless launched himself as “one hundred pc a curator.” He first started working with Artissima by overseeing the Current Future part. Since about 2007, Artissima has solely had curators as its administrators—“which could be very telling concerning the DNA, the spirit of the honest. I’m attempting to strengthen this curatorial identification,” Fassi advised Observer. He identified that greater than 50 curators helped shape this version of the honest, working throughout its numerous sections and offsite initiatives.
“Clearly it’s one hundred pc a market platform. It must be, it’ll all the time be. However I feel it’s additionally an interpretation of what the market is about. I feel you could be instrumental for the collaborating galleries by introducing them to curators, to establishments… It’s necessary to maintain mixing these two sides. We have now to work as a service platform.” As for these the honest targets, Fassi famous, “We attempt to be inclusive in direction of a middle-class type of collector, the Italian and worldwide bourgeoisie. Accumulating tradition in Italy has all the time been a middle-class sport. All of us grew up in Italy, no matter our earnings, in flats the place our grandparents and our dad and mom had work hanging on the wall. So it’s actually ingrained. It’s not essentially like this all over the place, not even in Europe. In Italy, it’s our tradition.”
Though this distinctly Italian sensibility grounds the honest’s context, Fassi identified that almost all of collaborating galleries weren’t Italian. “It’s like 60 % worldwide, 40 % Italian. There should not that many regional festivals the place the native gamers are a minority.” The honest is publicly owned, although it doesn’t obtain any public cash; it belongs to Fondazione Torino Musei, alongside main museum establishments. “I don’t have to answer a CEO asking me to generate extra money. That is my plus. I can reinvest no matter I earn into the honest, in favor of the galleries. For those who don’t need to generate cash for shareholders, then you definately suppose otherwise.”
As a curator, Fassi had excessive expectations for the sales space displays. “One work much less is best than one work extra,” he mentioned. There have been round 30 monographic cubicles, which he famous “offers you an concept of the extent of belief the galleries have in direction of artists, as a result of clearly it’s a bit extra dangerous to return and have only one artist, but it surely’s implausible for collectors. Collectors do love that, as a result of they’ll actually delve into the observe of the artist.” The honest additionally featured dialogues, together with one from London-based gallery Alice Amati, which introduced collectively Romanian-born, Vienna-based painter Paul Robas—whose works ranged from €3,000-6,000 and bought through the preview day—and Italian sculptor Ilaria Vinci, based mostly in Zurich, whose celestial-inspired birthday cake sculptures ranged from €2,500-€4,000 and drew explicit consideration. Amati, presenting for the second time on the honest after graduating from the New Entries part, famous, “I’m initially Italian, so it is smart to attach with the scene right here.” She described herself as being in a “testing section” with festivals and plans to return not solely to Artissima but additionally NADA Miami in December.
Representing the Turin scene was Biasutti & Biasutti, based in 2000 by Attilio Biasutti along with his son Giuseppe and daughter Paola. The gallery offered a venture on the Arte Povera motion with 4 artists participating with nature: Piero Gilardi (€150,000-450,000), Giovanni Anselmo (€10,000-400,000), Giulio Paolini (€10,000-70,000) and Mario Merz (€40,000-400,000), together with his emblematic Fibonacci sequence. Paolo Biasutti famous that in Turin’s artwork week there have been “good vibrations,” however that “Turin is a metropolis with a magic,” including that “with all of the difficulties of the second, we have now to beat issues, and [the fair] is a method to overcome issues.” The gallery additionally participates in Bologna’s Arte Fiera, though Biasutti admitted it attracts a extra nationwide crowd.
Extra worldwide in scope was Thomas Dane Gallery, which additionally reveals yearly at Frieze and Artwork Basel. Senior director Federica Sheehan advised Observer that the gallery, which participated in Artissima from 2010 to 2012, returned in 2023 after opening a Naples location in 2018. “We’ve seen a rise in international guests,” she mentioned of this version. The close by Pinacoteca Agnelli offered a piece by one of many gallery’s artists, Paul Pfeiffer, who realized a venture on the Pista 500 billboard in collaboration with Artissima. Pfeiffer’s work on the sales space featured a deconstructed Justin Bieber physique, which turned “probably the most photographed work of the sales space… possibly of the honest,” Sheehan mentioned, noting its give attention to “faith and pop media on the similar time.” Nonetheless, images by Luigi Ghirri (€11,000) bought first and briskly through the preview day.
Among the many New Entries part, which featured 12 rising worldwide galleries with lower than 5 years of exercise, was PİLEVNELİ—based by Murat Pilevneli in 2017 in Istanbul’s Dolapdere district—showing for the primary time with work by Bora Akıncıtürk (€6,000-€10,000). Pilevneli admitted to being new to the Turin scene however noticed that “ultimately, all festivals are very comparable. The one change is a few are extra native and a few are worldwide.” He described Turin as being on the “native” aspect of the spectrum however was happy to come across Turkish collectors. Akıncıtürk, in the meantime, performed with the notion of the honest itself, noting that “conceptually, right now’s festivals are usually this dystopian ecological hypercapitalist [thing].” His work, drawn from discovered on-line photos, takes a “Pop Artwork-y, kinda flashy colourful” strategy—depicting, on this occasion, a pair of glimmering secondhand Margiela boots from Vinted and a lesbian pornstar-turned-activist. I feel [the work] touches in the marketplace as a result of it’s particularly about late-stage capitalism,” he added, acknowledging the underside line underpinning even probably the most high-minded aesthetics in such a context.
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