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Monday, 13 March 2006 | Elif Sungur
MiArt: International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair
The eleventh MiArt - Milan's International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair - opens its doors to the public on 30 March 2006 and will run till 2 April.
The inauguration ceremony is scheduled to take place on 29 March 2006 in Pavilion 15 of Fieramilanocity, Milan's downtown exhibition center, a magnificent venue designed by Milanese architect Mario Bellini, that will also be housing the event in 2007 (29 March - 1 April) and 2008 (10-13 April).
The building that Pavilion 15 is located in was inaugurated in 1997 and is a two-storey construction with reception area and facilities situated on the intermediate level. Built entirely out of reinforced concrete, the halls feature ceilings up to 12 meters in height. As in 2005, the display stands in the Modern and Contemporary art sections will have four meter high walls.
To ensure yet another top quality event, MiArt has again invited galleries wishing to display at the show to submit their project proposals to the Selection Committee, which includes the same members as last year: Claudia Gian Ferrari, Claudio Guenzani, Matteo Lorenzelli, Massimo Mininni, Marco Niccoli and Carla Pellegrini Rocca.
The Artistic Advisor is Pasquale Leccese, while gallery owners Benjamin Brown of London and Philomene Magers of Munich are Goodwill Ambassadors for the Milan-based event in their respective countries.
MiArt is the only Italian exhibition and art fair that includes three separate sections, ranging from the historic avant garde movements to the most innovative offerings available on the current art scene.
The prestigious Modern art section houses galleries presenting works and artists from the turn of the 20th century till the 1960s; first-time exhibitors include the Tessa Herold gallery in Paris and the Manuel Barbié gallery in Barcelona. The Contemporary art section is devoted to exhibitors presenting art works from the last few decades, while the Anteprima section includes galleries who deal exclusively in emerging artists under the age of 35. This section, curated by Roberta Tenconi, will for the first time ever be publishing a separate Short Guide also covering the Video at MiArt project that includes sixteen Italian and overseas galleries that specialize in video art; the concept for Video at MiArt was developed by Olivia Spatola. This event, which is one of a kind in Italy, was made possible through a partnership between the Stelline Foundation, the Department for Sport and Youth Affairs of the Milan City Council, and MiArt.
The Art & Co. section, first launched at MiArt 2004, is devoted to galleries who deal in modern and contemporary art that straddles the fine line between art and design, and includes one-off pieces by great masters.
MiArt is also staging a series of conferences and meetings between members of the art world and the public at large.
Starting with MiArt 2006, a different country will be invited to attend each year. The first guest country is China. The project consists in bringing a selection of the most influential galleries based in China to MiArt; there will also be a round table discussion entitled Cina intra / extra Ovest, devoted to contemporary Chinese art. Among the panelists are top name artists, curators and collectors who live and work in both China and the West. Ai Weiwei and Huang Yongping, Hou Hanru and Li Xianting, Guan Yi and Uli Sigg, together with Hans Ulrich Obrist, will provide an overview of the current Chinese artistic landscape.
Along with the invited Chinese galleries, MiArt 2006 has also attracted forty new exhibitors, especially in the Anteprima section, from Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.
Milan's IULM University, in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is putting together an exhibit in the Anteprima section to shine the spotlight on the New York Award, an initiative designed to promote young artists through an agreement between the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry and Columbia University's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies.
Alongside the exhibit itself, which will display works by the young winners of previous editions (Matteo Basilè, Sarah Ciraci, Marta dell'Angelo, Rä Di Martino, Gabriele Picco, Chiara Rossi, Sara Rossi, Antonio Rovaldi, SISSI, Ivana Spinelli, Alessandra Tesi, Marcella Vanzo), on the first trading day of the MiArt fair - Thursday, 30 March 2006 - visitors and operators will be able to attend a round table discussion with several members of the Examination Board of the New York Prize 2005-2006.
On the same day, as part of the Utopian display platform, a series of meetings on contemporary curatorship conducted by Marco Scotini and Maurizio Bortolotti, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti of Milan (NABA) will be presenting Independent Spaces and Models of Curatorship with Peter Lewis (London, critic and curator, professor at the St. Martins School of Art and the Chelsea School of Art), Maria Lind (Stockholm, since 2005 the director of IASPIS - the International Artist Studio Programme in Sweden) and Raimundas Malasauskas (writer and curator, based in New York since 1995 and in 2001 a collaborator of the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania).
On Friday, 31 March, the public is invited to attend a conference and debate entitled: Al cuor non si comanda? La passione e la ragione tra iconografia e ricerca nel ventunesimo secolo (Is there no commanding the heart? Passion and reason between iconography and research in the twenty-first century), organized by the Paolo Pini Art Museum, coordinated by Teresa Melorio (MAPP) and featuring Professor Goldberg, an acclaimed American psychiatrist from the University of New York, along with other distinguished guests.
On the last day of the fair, Philippe Daverio and Jean Blanchaert will co-chair an event entitled Vetro, ceramica, smalto, legno, marmo, bronzo (Glass, ceramic, enamel, wood, marble, bronze), devoted to the contemporary decorative arts; invited guests include museum curators, artists, craftsmen, gallery owners and art historians who will present and discuss their work and environment.
Every day at 6.30pm, MiArt will also stage a meeting on atypical forms of art collecting: a conversation between Alberto Fiz (art critic and curator) and various personalities from the worlds of business and entertainment.
The complete MiArt program was announced during several presentations held in Italy and abroad, the first in December 2005 in Berlin.
Relations with institutional partners - the Milan City Council and Province and the Lombardy Region - continue to thrive, to create exciting new synergies among the many cultural organizations operating in and around the fair, and promote numerous artistic appointments in Milan during MiArt.
For the third year running, the Gallerie Aperte initiative will be promoted by the Province of Milan, during which the city's contemporary art galleries will stay open until midnight on Thursday, 23 March 2006, one week before the inauguration of the fair. Open Galleries is part of a larger project entitled
InContemporanea. La rete milanese dell'arte (InContemporanea. The Milanese art network) coordinated by the Province of Milan.
For further information, please visit http://www.miart.it/default_e.asp
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