Arte Fiera’s renewal, launched in anticipation of its 2023 edition and set to consolidate in the years to come, has involved a number of significant changes.
Some of the main new aspects are described below.
In 2023, Opus novum, the commission of a new work to be presented at the fair, has awarded to a mid-career Italian artist, will go to an acknowledged master: Alberto Garutti. Beyond the artist’s merit, the choice also celebrates his bond with Bologna, where in the early ’90s he chaired the Painting faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts and became a reference point for a generation of younger artists.
Performance is a field of expression inseparably linked to Bologna and to Arte Fiera, which has made live performance an essential feature of its program of events since 2019. 2023 editiod opens a new chapter, the result of a collaboration between the fair and the Furla Foundation, curated by Bruna Roccasalva, the Foundation’s artistic director. There was a single, large-scale event making its Italian debut, merging installation, performance and choreography: a live creation by Public Movement, an Israeli artistic collective.
Once again, Book Talk, a series of chats exclusively about art books, has returned to offer the public some of the most interesting books published recently in Italy.
This edition of Book Talk has been curated by Guendalina Piselli, assistant to Arte Fiera’s Artistic Director and former co-director of Fruit Exhibition - Independent Art Book Fair.
At the Piazza Costituzione entrance, a 5x9-meter megascreen displayed the first LED Wall Commission: a video conceived specifically for the billboard format, to be viewed by visitors as they enter the Fair District. LED Wall Commission#1 was dedicated to a videomaker celebrated in the field of visual arts as well as in film: Yuri Ancarani, who, during the fair, also had a solo show at MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna.