Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea in Torino, the only fair in Italy with an exclusive focus on contemporary art, announces the galleries that will take part in the 30th edition, directed for the second year by Luigi Fassi and produced with the support of Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo.
From Friday 3 November to Sunday 5 November 2023 the spaces of the Oval in Torino will welcome the four flagship sections of the fair – Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue and Art Spaces & Editions – and three curated sections – Disegni, Present Future and Back to the Future – also hosted on digital platform Artissima Voice Over.
Artissima 2023 will involve the participation of 181 Italian and international galleries, including 68 monographic and curated projects.
THE THEME FOR THE FAIR’S 30TH ANNIVERSARY
Artissima celebrates this important milestone by capitalizing on its many years of discovery, research and relations in order to look to the future in a constantly innovative and dynamic way.
The theme of Artissima 2023 is Relations of Care. Suggested by Brazilian anthropologist Renzo Taddei in a recent essay on indigenous thinking, the concept identifies and proposes care as a premise and as the ultimate aim of the advancement of knowledge, which first of all must be directed toward preserving the diversity and value of every form of life in the world.
Through art, care nurtures the individual and social imagination, becoming a matrix of all the relationships that form the fabric of our lives. Artissima, across 30 years of experience, has generated precisely these relations of care among gallerists, artists, collectors, professionals and art lovers, bringing together stories, formulating new narratives and providing novel ways of interpretating the present and the future to create a true community around art.
In the words of Luigi Fassi, Director of Artissima: “The 30th iteration of Artissima in Torino reflects the fair’s ability to develop a vision based on three decades of activity to continue to look into the future, relying on the power of the fair’s Italian and international network.
Taking our cue from the words of Renzo Taddei, that we have to nurture the growth of our imagination to create new forms of comprehension of reality, this year Artissima presents a revelatory experience through the works of artists, mediated by the indispensable work of the galleries. All this has been made possible by intense activities of research and scouting on a global level, to continue to offer collectors and museum professionals the excitement of encountering galleries and artists at the highest level from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Almost 40 galleries are taking part in Artissima for the first time in 2023, together with countless confirmations and returns, bearing witness to the appeal of the fair and its role as a catalyst of experimentation, research and investment on the art market. As can be seen from our archives across three decades, once again this year those who believe in Artissima – gallerists, collectors, curators and visitors – will be able to intercept the works and artists that will be the protagonists of the near future in Torino.”
The visual identity of the 2023 edition is by Torino-based graphic design studio FIONDA directed by Roberto Maria Clemente. Relations of Care has been translated into a coordinated image that alludes to harmonies in evolution, ecosystems and organisms in dialogue with each other. These are communities composed of relations based on the key role they play in the conservation of a planetary balance.
THE COMMITTEES
The selection committee for the galleries participating in the Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue and Art Spaces & Editions relies on a team of international gallerists, composed of Paola Capata, Monitor gallery in Roma, Lisbon and Pereto, Raffaella Cortese, Galleria Raffaella Cortese in Milano, Philippe Charpentier, mor charpentier gallery, Paris and Bogotá, Nikolaus Oberhuber, KOW gallery Berlin, and Antoine Levi, Ciaccia Levi gallery, Paris and Milano. The committee now has two new members: Elsa Ravazzolo Botner, A Gentil Carioca gallery of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, and Guido Costa, Guido Costa Projects gallery, Torino.
For the second consecutive year, the presence of Curatorial Advisors underlines the value of pioneering innovation in the fair’s identity, as conveyed by Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, and Jacopo Crivelli Visconto, an independent curator based in Sao Paulo. Together with the selection committee and the team of curators, they will contribute to formulate and narrate an edition that underscores the experimental character and the research conducted by the most interesting players on the international contemporary art scene.
Jacopo Crivelli Visconti is also the new curator of the series of video works, which Artissima has organized for the second year in dialogue with Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo at the Gallerie d’Italia – Torino. The project presents video works by artists represented by galleries participating in Artissima in the immersive room of the museum in Piazza San Carlo.
THE GALLERIES
The galleries of Artissima 2023 come from 33 countries and 4 continents: Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Zimbabwe.
39 galleries are showing works for the first time in the fair. They include Good Weather (North Little Rock, Little Rock, Chicago), Cristina Guerra (Lisbon), Meyer*Kainer (Vienna), Raster (Warsaw), The Sunday Painter (London), Unit 17 (Vancouver).
From a global perspective, the event welcomes the participation of a number of African galleries, including First Floor Gallery Harare (Harare, Victoria Falls), Whatiftheworld (Cape Town), in the section New Entries, Reservoir (Cape Town), and South American galleries including Marilia Razuk (Sao Paulo) and A Gentil Carioca (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo). For the first time, there is also a gallery from Thailand, Tang Contemporary Art (Bangkok, various locations).
In the New Entries section for emerging galleries that have been open for less than five years, the participants include among others, Barbati (Venezia), Efremidis (Berlin, Seoul), Eugenia Delfini (Roma), Hoa (Sao Paulo), Mou Projects (Hong Kong) and Fabian Lang (Zurich).
Some of the most outstanding galleries on the international and national scene have confirmed their support for Artissima, in some cases after a relationship of two decades, including Art: Concept (Paris), Alfonso Artiaco (Napoli), Continua (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Havana, Roma, Sao Paulo, Paris, Dubai), KOW (Berlin), Urs Meile (Lucerne, Beijing, Ardez), Massimo Minini (Brescia), Nagel Draxler (Berlin, Cologne, Munich), Franco Noero (Torino), P420 (Bologna), Gregor Podnar (Vienna), Dawid Radziszewski (Warsaw), Lia Rumma (Milan, Napoli), Tucci Russo (Torre Pellice, Torino), Vistamare (Milano, Pescara), Hubert Winter (Vienna), Jocelyn Wolff (Paris), Zero… (Milano).
Other returning galleries that contribute to the international perspective of the fair: Thomas Dane (London, Napoli), Francisco Fino (Lisbon), Martin Janda (Vienna), Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder (Vienna), Rodeo (London, Piraeus), Sies + Höke (Dusseldorf), Sommer (Tel Aviv, Zurich).
THE CURATED SECTIONS
The curated sections move forward with Irina Zucca Alessandrelli (curator, Collezione Ramo – Milano) for the Disegni section, and Maurin Dietrich (director, Kunstverein München – Munich) and Saim Demircan (independent curator and writer, Torino) for the section Present Future.
The curatorial team of Back to the Future is composed for the first time by Defne Ayas (freelance curator, Berlin) and Francesco Manacorda (freelance curator, London).
Disegni presents projects conceived as solo shows that emphasize the value of authenticity and autonomy of works on paper. The section is the only one in this medium in an Italian art fair, concentrating on the unique character of drawing and its intrinsic immediacy, with the aim of raising awareness of the power and expressive variety of drawings and other works on paper.
Present Future is the section for rising talents, hosting monographic projects with the aim of surveying the new trends developing in the international panorama of contemporary art.
Back to the Future presents monographic projects by contemporary art pioneers whose work has played a key role in art history. The section contains works made from 1950 to 1979, focusing on geographical areas in which female artists have been less visible due to their gender and their cultural and political identity.
Besides being physically present in the fair, the curated sections will exist online on digital platform Artissima Voice Over with special in-depth coverage, produced thanks to the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo.
PRIZES AND ACQUISITIONS
Artissima, in collaboration with art institutions, partner companies and foundations, coordinates many prizes for artists and galleries, with two important new developments for 2023: the Premio Diana Bracco – Imprenditrici ad arte promoted by Fondazione Bracco, and the Premio Pista 500 organized by Pinacoteca Agnelli. The initiatives also include the historic Acquisitions Fund organized by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, which has been increased for the 30th anniversary of the fair.
The nascent Premio Diana Bracco – Imprenditrici ad arte organized by Fondazione Bracco in collaboration with Fondazione Roberto De Silva and Diana Bracco of Milano focuses on the figure of the female gallerist as entrepreneur. A jury of experts will select an emerging woman gallerist whose gallery has at least one location in Italy and whose entrepreneurial history displays a strong orientation towards artistic research and quality. The prize becomes part of a wider-ranging reflection on the role of women in the art business, which takes concrete form in a digital project.
The palimpsest of prizes and honours for artists and galleries also contains a new project in collaboration with Pinacoteca Agnelli. The Premio Pista 500 will grant one artist the opportunity to create an original work for the Pista 500, the new project of site-specific art installations on the test track on the roof of the Lingotto, now a spectacular panoramic promenade in the proximity of Artissima.
The historic Acquisitions Fund organized by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT has been increased to reach 200,000 euros, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fair. The acquisitions benefit the collections of GAM – Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna di Torino and Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea.
The sponsors of the historic and younger prizes have confirmed their support for the fair: illycaffè with the illy Present Future prize; VANNI occhiali with the VANNI occhiali #artistroom prize; Tosetti Value – Il Family office with the Tosetti Value per la fotografia award; Collezione La Gaia with the Matteo Viglietta Award; Fondazione Sardi per l’Arte with the Carol Rama Award; Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT with the OGR Award; Fondazione Merz with “ad occhi chiusi…”; Fondazione Oelle with ISOLA SICILIA; MEF Museo Ettore Fico di Torino with the Premio Ettore e Ines Fico.
Press release from Artissima
