ARTE FIERA OBSERVATORY

After earning a degree in Modern Literature with a dissertation on the History of Contemporary Art, she received her PhD in Art History in 1989. From 1986 to 2015 she chaired the department of History and Methodology of Art Criticism at the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna. She began working with Arte Fiera in Bologna in 1988, first as a consultant and, from 2003 to 2012, as Artistic Director. From 1983 to 2004 she contributed articles to Il Giornale dell'arte" (Umberto Allemandi Editore, Turin). From 2005 to 2009 she was a member of the Commisione Unicredit per l'Arte. In 2012 she was appointed, by renown, as professor of Historical Avant-garde and Neo-Avant-garde Movements for the Master’s Degree course at the School of Art, Humanities, and Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna, a role she still covers.

I’ve “gone to” Arte Fiera ever since its first edition in 1974, when, as a student of modern literature, I worked as a stand assistant to earn a few Lire. Back then the fair was a trade fair, i.e., there were farm machines, bedrooms, stalls that sold sandwiches, etc. in the halls next to the ones that exhibited works of art. My love of contemporary art was ignited by that experience as a stand assistant at the first edition of Arte Fiera.

I had studied medieval and modern art, and I was thrust into a different and amazing world. The first few editions of the fair presented the galleries of Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend, the Malborough, plus Sidney Jannis, John Weber, Anna Canepa, Parasol, Giorgio Marconi, Lia Rumma, Lucio Amelio, and Lucrezia De Domizio. I met, among others, Luigi Carluccio, Robert Rauschenberg and Leo Castelli. I have a very vivid memory of Leo Castelli: that extraordinary man enchanted me with his (proverbial) elegance and charm, even if he couldn’t really be called handsome. I recall his kindness and ability to listen to everyone, answering them in their own language: Italians in Italian, Americans in English, French in French, Germans in German, while simultaneously chatting with his wife Ileana in Hungarian.

Then, for ten years, I worked as a director in international art fairs. Contemporary art fairs run a real risk of approval because they’re always compared to Art Basel. Here in Bologna we stand out because we’re an Italian fair, and Italy’s artistic output is extraordinary, underestimated globally, and without much support.

Arte Fiera is the international showcase of Italian art, and this has been perfectly understood by Simone Menegoi, its current director, with his deputy Gloria Bartoli.

We’re sailing in stormy seas: my hopes and thoughts, and those of my city, are with Arte Fiera.
 

Leo Castelli - Photo: Cordon Press