Among friends is the title of the 29th edition of miart which, this year, presented 179 galleries from 31 countries and 5 continents between April 4 and 6. The organizers challenged selfishness and proposed themselves as standard-bearers of the collaborative message of Robert Rauschenberg, who gave the title to this edition, urging a spirit made of bonds and relationships to be woven and strengthened. We were there and brought home thirteen reflections that, necessarily, are subjective and not exhaustive of all the interesting things that this multilingual fair exhibited in the heart of the Allianz Mico in Milan.
Lettera collettiva al Governo esposta in tutti gli stand in fiera, ph. Giovanni Crotti
The first reflection is not a critical contribution, but rather an evidence: in many Italian stands (perhaps all, but it was not always in a prominent position) stood out the beige cry of alarm of hundreds of artists who signed the appeal, addressed to the current government, to introduce measures capable of favoring the diffusion of art also through a tariff adjustment to the European countries most sensitive to the issue. The appeal speaks of the risk of cultural desertification and it gives you the shivers to think of the closure and loss of important private entities, throughout the peninsula, that have made and continue to make art in Italy.
Martha Rosler, “Prospect for Today,” from the series “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home, New Series”, 2008, fotomontaggio, 76,2 × 259,1 cm; 78,5 × 263 × 3,8 cm framed, © Martha Rosler courtesy of the artist, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan – Albisola
Let’s start with the Milanese (also based in Albisola) Raffaella Cortese Gallery and an octogenarian American photographer capable of focusing her lens on injustice and suffering. Martha Rosler‘s is in fact a great photograph that unites the public and private spheres, leading the observer into the heart of an ordinary American family, against the backdrop of wars and the consequences of war (such as the amputation of a limb). Prospect for Today (2008) is an image that shocks by showing two war veterans against the backdrop of typical American consumer icons such as the refrigerator and the gas station. The two military figures are an African-American and a Caucasian struggling with metal prostheses that have taken the place of one of their legs: we are faced with collage and photomontage and the sensation that comes from such disturbing images (bourgeois everyday life and war) is a healthy whiplash to our comfortable reassurances.
Jacopo Benassi, “Bas-relief”, fine art photo print, artist frames, wooden clips, strap, 136 × 106 cm, courtesy Galleria Francesca Minini
Instead, it is a photography that pushes beyond its own boundaries that of the 55-year-old Jacopo Benassi from La Spezia proposed by the double family gallery Minini from Brescia and Milan. The work that struck us, Sharol (2024) is a remarkable hybrid, that is photography, a naked bust of a woman, but also a photographic print that seems to come from a construction site, embedded in a small bas-relief and other artistic objects. Benassi transmits a great sense of fragmentation: fragmentation of bodies and photographic fragmentation that the artist loves to contaminate with load-bearing structures.
Richard Zinon, “Untitled 1”, oil on canvas, 160 x 200 cm, © Richard Zinon, courtesy Cadogan Gallery
London (and also Milan) is home to the Cagodan Gallery, which, among others, features Richard Zinon, a forty-year-old artist from Manchester. Zinon always invites the observer to have a first emotional reaction, followed by an intellectual understanding. The works seen at the fair are large paintings with broad brush strokes characterized by a strong gesture. The effect on the observer recalls elements of nature and calligraphy, and the large white space on the canvas positively disorients the gaze. Zinon sends us back to a vital flow that expresses the artist’s inner magma well and allows us to enter into a direct connection with this depth.
Nazzarena Poli Maramotti, “Prima dell’eclissi”, 2024, mixed media on canvas, 160 x 120 cm, courtesy z2o Sara Zanin gallery
The artistic proposal selected in the spaces of the Roman gallery z2o Sara Zanin is the painting of the Reggio Emilia native Nazzarena Poli Maramotti, just over 45 years old. We were impressed by the artist’s abstract expressiveness, which materializes almost like an epiphany of tones and shades: what is printed on the canvas is whirling, recalls the elements of nature, the chromatic portions expand, contract, combine in unreal yet recognizable forms. In her works on display, the black of the night seems to prevail and, instead, with a superb ability to warm, other less cold colors erupt and the gaze is pleasantly lost in these sometimes robust and sometimes tenuous fields.
Monia Ben Hamouda, “Rage moving through generations”, 2024, ph. Giulio Boem, courtesy of the artist and ChertLüdde, Berlino
Almost thirty-five years old and a bridge between two cultures is the Italian-Tunisian painter Monia Ben Hamouda. Seen at the fair in the spaces of the Berlin gallery Chertlüdde, the artist superbly proposes her father’s calligraphic tradition and, as mentioned, a woman between two worlds, she moves on the border between the energetic gesture of the brush and the representation of founding elements of Maghreb, Mashreqina and Indian culture such as henna, with that color also on the border between two shades, red and orange. For example, Rage moving through generations (2024) is a work made in charcoal and pastel on ivory paper. We are not faced with a work that can be classified as a study, but rather we are observing a work that translates a ritual, with the artistic signs that seem to expand into the support space. We return to an established artist with the Andrew Kreps Gallery from New York: the African-descendant Raymond Saunders (already ninety years old) enthuses with his hinted and floating flowers in watercolor, acrylic and pencil on paper (thematic project from the decade 2000-2010). The pencil accompanies these loaded pigmentations and if, as the artist says, “color is the means and not the end”, we look beyond the chromatic stains: we will see intimate, very sober depictions on the space of the paper, flowers that are born from a “black garden” (another thematic series by Saunders) to connect the social theme with the artistic representation.
Elio Mariani, “Abbraccio”, early 70s, collage on photography, 18 x 24 cm, courtesy Galleria Clivio
It is capable of disorienting and reorienting the photographic art by Elio Mariani, proposed by the Parma (and Milanese) gallery Clivio. The bodies of a naked couple embracing (Abbraccio is also the title of the thematic project dating back to the early 70s), mutilated of the head, against the backdrop of landscapes oscillating between the surface of the moon and the everyday life of the advertisement of a brand of soft drinks, represent a very vibrant point in Mariani’s photographic journey, bringing in this case to the apex the idea of a photograph that, restructuring and reorganizing itself, becomes a new entity independent from what determined it.
Emilio Vedova, “Di umano ‘83 – I”, 1983, courtesy Galleria dello Scudo
The vision of a painting by Emilio Vedova is always an incredible emotional jolt. You walk through the corridors between one stand and another, and your gaze lingers on the vibrant brush strokes of the Venetian artist. Perhaps because these works reveal the artist’s human and social indignation; perhaps because behind that gestural power you can see the rebellious genius, also made up of so much public commitment, of the greatest of our informal artists. In this case, the Vedova epiphany comes from Galleria dello Scudo in Verona: it is a continuum of interpenetrations between the artist and the man, between the creative’s gesture and the indignation of the human being, between the force of the material and the force of the message. His works of art reject pictorial realism, but equally show us reality through these powerful brush strokes that are the (pictorial) sign of the malaise of society and at the same time the artist’s awareness of opening new creative, expressive and social paths.
Arthur Duff, “Black Stars Fragment_M69 – 2017”, polyester rope on steel frame, 140 x 140 x 9 cm, courtesy Galleria Antonio Verolino
A magnificent work is that of the forty-five year old German, Vicenza by adoption, Arthur Duff, proposed by the Modena gallery Antonio Verolino. His geometric elaborations, made of rope on a loom, are magnificent visual immersions in the infinity of the mechanical framework. We are very far from an art of easy commercial consumption and the effect of the work, conceived in an analogical way, is that of a weaving of hypnotic, dynamic images, apparently gravitating around a central point that amplifies the visual space, thanks to its powerful material and physical manufacture.
Artworks by Mats Bergquist, installation view, ph. Sarah Indiriolo, courtesy Atipografia
The work of the Swedish artist Mats Bergquist, born in 1960 and proposed by Atipografia gallery based in Arzignano, is conceptual and spiritual. Poetically very minimal, his works always conceal a truly intense corpus of meanings: proof of this is the thematic series, inspired by Nietzsche’s Gaia scienza, of the square icons worn by the kisses of the faithful to the point of erasing the sacred figure over time. The effect on the observer is of great rigor, perhaps even coldness, but the positive coldness of someone who has managed to decline with personality the sense and ritual of faith by giving shape to the absolute and putting us in dialogue with it.
Artworks by Franco Guerzoni, installation view, courtesy Galleria Marcorossi contemporanea
The Milanese Marcorossi contemporanea (with offices also in Pietrasanta, Rome, Turin and Verona) makes the senses explode with the large wall works in scagliola, pigments, chalk and dust by Franco Guerzoni (Modena, born in 1948). Matter and memory are the fulcrum around which the poetics of this artist revolves, capable of making us see fragments of archaeology, walls peeling away by time, or rather by the element that allows us to understand reality. The forgotten wall. Works from 1990 to 2015 is in fact the project conceived by the artist who digs into the surface of the matter to show us how art is capable of regenerating itself.
Info:
I am Giovanni Crotti, born in 1968, and I feel obliged to thank writing because it drives my life. I cultivate within me multitudes that lead me to investigate, know, and deepen every cultural and creative expression, and then write about it, always trying to be clear and documented in the contents.
NO COMMENT