There was also the painful Iranian question in the just concluded 49th edition of Arte Fiera in Bologna, anno domini 2026 (the first signed by new director Davide Ferri). The renewed external pavilion Esprit Nouveau, exact reproduction of the Parisian one signed by Le Corbusier, hosted in fact a (very) conceptual and powerful installation/performance by Franco-Iranian artist Chalisée Naamani.
Chalisée Naamani,”Wardrobe”, Padiglione de l’Esprit Nouveau, Bologna, 2026. Un progetto di Arte Fiera in collaborazione con Fondazione Furla, ph credits Team99, courtesy l’artista e Ciaccia Levi (Parigi-Milano)
Proposed by Fondazione Furla, “Wardrobe” is an installation composed of a multitude of garment covers all white and identical, interspersed with some of the colored garments that have long been part of Naamani’s artistic poetics. But “Wardrobe” does not only mean garment and wardrobe: broadening the etymology, the word also welcomes the sense of guarding, of protecting bodies, those same bodies that, heroically and tragically, the Iranian people (especially women) are putting in front of regime violence. The performance connected to “Wardrobe” saw the artist engaged in ironing and here too one can identify multiple levels of reading: dwelling requires daily actions, some of which are associated by social conventions with female care.
Gabrielle Goliath, “Beloved (Pauline II)”, 2024, oil pastel on paper, 152 × 112 cm; 168 × 128 × 7 cm framed; Marcello Maloberti, “KOLOSSAL”, 2026, Traffic signal, galvanized steel tubes, steel chains, photo credit: t-space, courtesy Galleria Raffaella Cortese
Gabrielle Goliath is a South African artist recently victim of a sensational case of censorship. Her project to realize the South African pavilion at the imminent Venice Biennale was cancelled by government decision and it is suspected that this reversal was determined by the presence of references to the genocide operated by Israel in Gaza. The artist is represented in Italy, and therefore at the fair, by Galleria Raffaella Cortese, second stop of this personal reconnaissance, gallery which moreover counts in its stable also the site-specific welcome installation placed at the entrance of the fair. Titled “Kolossal” and created by Marcello Maloberti, it inaugurates the novelty introduced by the new fair direction of Davide Ferri of the Preludio, that is of artworks commissioned to important Italian contemporary artists (in this case, very significantly, Maloberti has installed a true road sign indicating Bologna, still with clods of earth at the roots, lifted toward the high sky by a crane). Always linked to a political representation of art, Gabrielle Goliath’s works that we saw exhibited in the Milanese gallery’s stand represent a diptych, minimal in style, that pays homage to the driving force of the daily female struggle for a better world. “Beloved” is the project series to which the two large drawings in oil and pigment belong that, effectively, strike for the contrast between minimal style of the stroke on paper and force of the message.
Rabih Mrouè, “No surprises after that evening”, 2025, tecnica mista su carta, 20 x 20 cm ciascuno, courtesy l’artista e Laveronica Arte Contemporanea
Still the theme of Gaza is at the center of a very interesting double proposal exhibited by Galleria Laveronica from Modica. Malak Mattar and Rabih Mrouè are both artists radically linked to the Palestinian cause, seen with two related and different expressivities. The affinity that links the two, beyond the decisive commonality of origins, is the very minimal style of representation of the Palestinian tragedy (with gaze expanded by Mattar also to the Middle East): Malak Mattar in fact expresses herself on postcards, while Rabih Mroué on paper slightly larger than a postcard. The heart of their art lies in what they represent: Mattar, woman artist from Gaza who has lived in London since October 6, 2023 (that is, from the eve of Hamas’s attack), traces in these works the tragedy with a style we could define as more naïf, showing us small colored scenes that magnetize the gaze of the observer thanks to the gigantic import enclosed within small dimensions. Mroué, born in Lebanon and resident in Berlin, has a more mature expressive style with which he puts before our eyes human figures in evident state of suffering, with a force that is luminous despite also in this case the spatial minority.
Tullio Brunone, “Arsenale”, tecnica mista e collage su cartoncino 50 x 70 cm, ph. credits, Archivio Tullio Brunone, courtesy Galleria Clivio
Still political art is what we saw in the stand of the Parma (and Milan) gallery Clivio. Of remarkable impact is the presentation of some mixed media and photographic works by Tullio Brunone, Italian originally from Alexandria of Egypt, artist among the founders of LCM, Laboratorio di Comunicazione Militante. What interests Brunone is the theme of communication, declined with remarkable technical capacity and robust conceptual corpus. The capacity for tampering and manipulation of the message, the inability to discern of the observer are the cornerstones of Brunone’s reflection and artistic proposal, which has in “Arsenale” a vivid example of his theory and consequent artistic practice. A carabiniere, in typical pose of weapons seizure, actually handles and has before him on the table innocuous musical instruments and objects of daily use, creating an effect of lasting disorientation capable of penetrating the fruitor’s perception.
Aleksandar Petkov, “15_04_2026”, 2025, cemento, pigmenti, farina, plastica, base in ferro zincato, 107,5 x 19 x 14 cm, courtesy l’artista e Galleria Studio G7, Bologna
More aesthetic art is that of the very young Aleksandar Petkov, Bulgarian artist by origin and resident for some time in Bologna. Proposed by Galleria Studio G7 from Bologna and among the winners of the VIR Viafarini-in-residence residency, by Petkov we saw on exhibition some monoliths and a site-specific gravel project. Of particular interest is the union of very hard (and concrete, as from etymology) elements, such as cement, with organic elements placed in the cracks of hardness. The effect on the visitor is vibrant, the constructive rigor of Petkov’s sculptures/installations softens to the gaze, emanating to us a primordial and ancestral language characterized by an essentiality of high impact.
Cristian Chironi, “Offside #4”, 2007, analogue silver salt printing, 73 × 98,5 cm, courtesy l’artista e Ncontemporary
Compositional art profoundly illuminated by human gaze is that of Christian Chironi, from Nuoro born in 1974. Presented by Ncontemporary from Milan, in the Photography section of Arte Fiera 2026, Chironi is author of a very interesting project on soccer, with the emblematic title of “Offside”, which has amateur soccer as protagonist. Central in his thematic is the relationship with minor Sardinian teams and with those who, like Pier Paolo Pasolini, practiced soccer in neighborhood fields. The photographer prints a giant photograph of the chosen photograph and then completes the artwork portraying himself as added element at natural size. The impact on the fruitor is truly disorienting: the 1:1 scale makes very plausible the enlargement of the scene to a living player and the dimension of time becomes oscillating between vintage and contemporaneity.
Yuchu Gao, “Bearing Capacity”, 2024, exhibition view at Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, Munich, DE, courtesy l’artista ed ERMES
In the Prospettiva section, which better exalts the general title of Arte Fiera 2026, that “Cosa sarà” that recalls a near future of art, among the most interesting proposals was that of Roman gallery ERMES. Chinese woman artist Yuchu Gao, born in 1993, is in fact protagonist of a broad project titled “Bearing Capacity” (in engineering, bearing capacity), fascinating artistic series that recalls Greek Caryatids. Charcoal on paper is predominant and very interesting is the comparison between a minimal technique with such a broad theme, between female figures portrayed in multiethnic key and the complexity of a current world so ethnically composite. If the Greek Caryatids had to support the architrave of the building, very many contemporary women are the driving force of today’s society and Yuchu Gao, strong in remarkable cultural preparation, shows them to us with a force that goes beyond the two-dimensionality of the portrayal.
Emilio Mazzoli ad Arte Fiera 2018, ph. Rolando Paolo Guerzoni, courtesy Galleria Mazzoli, Modena
Flanked by the rural scene of the homonymous painting by Sandro Chia, I met Emilio Mazzoli, publisher and gallerist born in 1942 and founder of Galleria Mazzoli in Modena since 1977. Mazzoli, shy man with very polite tones, received the Career Award from Angamc, the National Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries, regarding which the gallerist expressed gratitude because it is an unexpected prize for him and, even more, for the claim of the lowering of VAT which, thanks to the extraordinary commitment of Angamc, is today in Italy at 5%. Emilio Mazzoli, not only for demographic reasons, belongs to that generation that built the Italian artistic canon of the last fifty years, intuiting and supporting the expressive capacity and possible affirmation of some of the most important names of these decades. A sort of daily practice of “Cosa sarà” since 1977.
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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.
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