by Redazione , published on 16/09/2023
Original article

The 30th edition of Artissima will be held from November 3-5, 2023. The theme will be ‘Relations of care. Here are facts and news from the contemporary art fair in Turin.

Everything is ready for the 2023 edition of Artissima, Torino’s contemporary art fair celebrating its 30th edition. Directed for the second year by Luigi Fassi and realized with the support of Main Partner Intesa Sanpaolo, the 30th edition of Artissima will be held from Friday, November 3 to Sunday, November 5, 2023, as always at theOval spaces in Turin, which will host the fair’s four established sections – Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue and Art Spaces & Editions – and the three curated sections – Drawings, Present Future and Back to the Future – that are also hosted on the digital platform Artissima Voice Over. The 2023 edition of Artissima features a total of 181 Italian and international galleries, 68 of which are proposing monographic and curated projects to better present their artists’ work to the public.

“The 30th edition of Artissima in Turin,” explains director Fassi, “recounts the fair’s ability to draw a design vision from its three decades of activity to continue projecting into the future, deploying the strength of its Italian and international network. All of this has been made possible through intensive global research and scouting to continue to offer collectors and museum operators the excitement of meeting galleries and artists of the highest caliber from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The nearly forty galleries participating in Artissima for the first time in 2023, along with countless confirmations and returns, testify to the fair’s attractiveness and its ability to be a catalyst for experimentation, research, and market investment in the arts. As made manifest by an archive of three decades of activity, again this year those who bet on Artissima – gallerists, collectors, curators and visitors – will be rewarded by the discovery that they have been able to intercept in Turin the works and artists who are the protagonists of the near future.”

Welcoming the public to Artissima will be the installation LaCittaDinAmica: a labyrinth of transparent alvelular polycarbonate panels, illuminated with polychromatic reflections born from the encounter between natural light and the colors of the panels, which will be placed at the main entrance of the pavilion thanks to the dialogue between Jacopo Foggini and the company Dott.Gallina. After being presented in Milan on the occasion of Fuorisalone 2023, the intervention conceived by Foggini lands in Turin as well, seeing its elements cut and tilted, in an allegory of plasticity toward change, with a new labyrinthine pattern rearrangement.

The theme of Artissima 2023 is Relations of Care, a concept developed in a recent essay by Brazilian anthropologist Renzo Taddei, professor at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo in Brazil, dedicated to formulating a hypothesis for overcoming the crises of our time by taking inspiration from indigenous Amazonian thought. Relations of Care identifies and proposes care as the premise and ultimate goal of the advancement of knowledge, which must be, first and foremost, aimed at preserving the diversity and value of every form of life in the world we inhabit.

In the essay Intervention of Another Nature: Resources for thinking in (and out of) the Anthropocene, published in the collected volume Everyday Matters (Ruby Press, Berlin, 2022), Renzo Taddei reflects on the need to validate all forms of knowledge and production of new knowledge only from a radical dimension of care that opens to an unprecedented sense of responsibility toward the natural world and all the species that inhabit it. By adopting such a reversal of perspective, Western-minded thought nurtures the possibility of opening up to a new imaginary, inspired by the model of the indigenous communities of the Amazon, which have always placed at the center of their existence the care of the environment and surrounding nature as fundamental elements for survival. Taddei thus invites us to follow this model of thought, abandoning any ideology of Western man’s otherness and superiority to nature, in order to reconnect with other forms of knowledge and coexistence and thus generate new possible relationships of care. Care imagined through the insights generated by the artists’ art and thought nourishes social and individual sensibilities and becomes a matrix of all the relationships that form the fabric of our lives.

Artissima also promotes numerous awards for artists and galleries in collaboration with art institutions, partner companies and foundations, which are confirmed and renewed for the 30th edition. In fact, the 2023 edition will be enriched by two important novelties: the Diana Bracco Prize – Women Entrepreneurs in Art promoted by Fondazione Bracco in collaboration with the Roberto De Silva and Diana Bracco Foundation of Milan, and the Pista 500 Prize promoted by Pinacoteca Agnelli. In addition, the historic Fondo Acquisizioni promoted by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT is increased to 200,000 euros on the occasion of the fair’s 30th anniversary. Adding to these novelties is the IDENTITY Fund for New Entries, which supports the participation of three galleries in the section, selected by an exceptional jury composed of the fair’s four previous artistic directors. Also confirming their support are the promoters of the historic and younger awards: illycaffè with the illy Present Future Award; VANNI occhiali with the VANNI occhiali #artistroom Award; Tosetti Value – The Family office with the Tosetti Value Award for photography; 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 the “ad occhi chiusi….”; Fondazione Oelle with the ISOLA SICILIA Award; MEF Museo Ettore Fico in Turin with the Ettore and Ines Fico Award.

The organization of Artissima is handled by Artissima srl, a company of Fondazione Torino Musei, established in 2008 to manage the artistic and commercial relations of the fair. The Artissima brand belongs to the City of Turin, the Piedmont Region, and the Metropolitan City of Turin. The 30th edition of Artissima is realized through the support of the three brand-owning entities, jointly with Fondazione CRT through Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, and the Turin Chamber of Commerce.

The Sections

The sections of Artissima 2023, as anticipated, are seven in number. Four are selected by the fair’s gallery committee: Main Section brings together a selection of the most representative galleries on the world art scene (this year 98 have been chosen, of which 46 are foreign); New Entries, a section reserved for emerging galleries on the international scene participating in the fair for the first time, will have 17 galleries this year, of which 13 are foreign; Monologue/Dialogue is reserved for emerging galleries and/or those with an experimental approach who intend to present a monographic stand or a dialogue between the works of two artists, with 38 galleries of which 24 are foreign; Art Spaces & Ed itions hosts galleries specializing in artists’ editions and multiples, bookstores, project spaces and nonprofit spaces, with 9 exhibitors.

There are three sections curated by international boards of curators: Drawings, Present Future, Back to the Future. The three curated sections of the fair will be present at the fair with monographic booths and will live on the digital platform Artissima Voice Over with dedicated insights.

The Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue, Art Spaces & Editions Committee is formao tda Paola Capata, Monitor gallery, Rome, Lisbon, Pereto; Raffaella Cortese, Raffaella Cortese gallery, Milan; Philippe Charpentier, mor charpentier gallery, Paris, Bogota; Nikolaus Oberhuber, KOW gallery, Berlin; Antoine Levi, Ciaccia Levi gallery, Paris and Milan; Elsa Ravazzolo Botner, A Gentil Carioca gallery, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo; Guido Costa, Guido Costa Projects gallery, Turin. Curatorial advisors are: Krist Gruijthuijsen, director, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, independent curator, São Paulo.

The galleries at Artissima 2023 come from four continents and 33 countries: Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, South Korea, Cuba, United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, United States, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Hungary, Uruguay and Zimbabwe. Exhibiting for the first time at the fair are 39 galleries. These include Good Weather (North Little Rock, Little Rock, Chicago), Cristina Guerra (Lisbon), Meyer*Kainer (Vienna), Raster (Warsaw), The Sunday Painter (London), Unit 17 (Vancouver).

The Identity track.

Artissima celebrates its thirtieth anniversary by launching, with the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, IDENTITY: a three-year path to enhance the fair’s identity traits that at each edition will offer in-depth project focuses to highlight the strategic lines that in its thirty-year history have contributed to Artissima’s current positioning in the art world.

IDENTITY 2023 is dedicated to the New Entries section that welcomes interesting emerging national and international galleries participating in the fair for the first time. IDENTITY takes concrete form in the activation of IDENTITY Fund for New Entries, an economic fund to support three galleries to participate in the section, and in the realization of New Entries BAR, a special project at the fair curated by Cripta747, aimed at offering the galleries in the section an additional showcase and opportunity to deepen their research.

Special projects

There are several special projects also for the 30th edition of Artissima. They start with the New Entries Bar for Identity, a place, a project and a story created with the intention of enhancing the research of the galleries of the New Entries section and their artists within the conceptual platform IDENTITY, supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation. The New Entries BAR is curated by Cripta747 and will welcome the fair audience in a dedicated area of the pavilion.

Again, Artissima and Juventus continue the dialogue by renewing Artissima Junior, the project that involves young visitors to the fair, between the ages of 6 and 11, in the creation of a choral work of art under the guidance of an artist tutor, who this year will be Eugenio Tibaldi, represented by Umberto Di Marino Gallery in Naples.

Artissima and Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, will then present the third episode of the Beyond Production project platform, created in 2021 to reflect on the relationship between new technologies and art. In 2023, Beyond Production Symposium will be presented, a conference with outstanding international speakers, hosted at OGR Turin and open to the public of enthusiasts.

The digital front is also active: thanks to Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, which has supported Artissima Digital since 2017, the commitment to amplify the fair experience through the production of digital thematic content and insights on the artissima.art and Artissima Voice Over platforms, dedicated to the three curated sections, continues. In addition to the reconfirmation of the AudioGuides to accompany the public’s visit to the fair, the 2023 edition will be enriched with two new pieces of unreleased content in collaboration with important authors from the cultural world. The in-depth multimedia cultural magazine Lucy. On Culture in dialogue with Brazilian anthropologist Renzo Taddei will explore the many nuances of the Relations of Care edition’s theme, while personalities from the world of art, theater and literature will take turns at the microphones of the new podcast Lo stereoscopio dei solitari, produced in collaboration with Il Giornale dell’Arte, which will be launched during the days of the fair.

Coming to its second edition is the AudioGuide project: Lauretana, a longtime partner of Artissima, is promoting for the second year the podcast project designed to accompany visitors on an autonomous and personal tour of the fair’s stands. The project is part of Artissima Digital powered by Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo.

Then there will be The Planetary Curator: starting from a reflection on the theme of the edition of Artissima 2023, Relations of Care, CURA. magazine has conceived and curated The Planetary Curator, a series of talks conceived as a single stream of thought and discussion on the theme of care, bringing into dialogue outstanding personalities in the contemporary art scene. The talk series will animate the Meeting Point on Saturday, Nov. 4.

Finally, the Made In project: an academy for young artists that allows them to live in the company and assimilate and incorporate, within their own research, the technological and operational knowledge with which they will come into contact. Born in 2022 thanks to the support of the Turin Chamber of Commerce, Made In announces its second edition and new partner companies-Dr.Gallina, Guido Gobino Cioccolato, Kristina Ti, Pinifarina Architecture-inviting them to discover the works produced during the first edition at the fair.