Artissima 2021, for those who want to go “against the clock”

If you’ve never been to Artissima, l’the only Italian fair dedicated exclusively to contemporary art, this is the right time to remedy.

From Friday 5th November to Sunday 7th November 2021, the address to put on the navigator is that ofTurin Oval. Built in the Olympic era for ice skating competitions, it now elegantly welcomes, in its large and bright spaces, the various sections of the fair: ‘Main Section’ for consolidated galleries, ‘New entries‘for emerging ones, “Dialogue/Monologue“For stands that focus on a single author or a couple,”Art Space & editions” for special projects, including those of non-profit organizations and associations.

When you enter – fairs always have this effect a bit – the feeling is of being in the land of toys: hundreds of stands (participate well 154 galleries, Italian and foreign, from 37 different countries) and proposals. You can act in two ways: go to the site and download the map (or take one at the entrance) or let yourself be guided by curiosity, which is always the engine of beautiful discoveries, especially in art.

In the title, the program

Know that this year’s theme is Backlash: as he explains to us Ilaria Bonacossa, director of the fair for 5 years (and here in her last year of mandate), the title is “a metaphor for the ability of art to beat on weak accents by turning them into strengths and creating a contrast of dominant voice ». In short, the idea is to find, among the various works on display, “intuitions that anticipate the future», Perhaps questioning our way of looking at the world. In the gallery below find some of these visions, the ones that most impressed us.

Nice, but I can’t: Artissima is also online

If you can’t go to Turin, there is the possibility of a virtual visit. All sections of the fair will live in a cross-media digital space, Artisssima XYZ, capable of going beyond the classic viewing-room and online catalogs, with the addition of two other exquisitely digital sections, with interviews with artists, gallery owners and curators.

Extra fair: what happens in Turin

Every year Artissima has its own specific “geographical focus”, a special project on a country that involves various institutions in the city: 2021 is dedicated to India and Hub India, with projects scattered in various museums (Palazzo Madama, Civic Museum of Ancient Art, MAO Museum of Oriental Art, Academy of Fine Arts) looks at the artistic complexity, past and present, of the Indian subcontinent.

Turin is also full of exhibitions and events in this artsy week-end. The city is worth a visit Merz Foundation which this time presents an exhibition project in which the works of Mario and Marisa Merz they compare with the works of Richard Long, Giulio Paolini and Remo Salvadori. There GAM Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery hosts a “Chamber of wonders”Created by the imagination of Luigi Ontani, an exhibition by Claudio Parmiggiani and an immersive installation by Alessandro Sciaraffa while at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation – which also presents the project Memory Matters inside the Parco del Valentino – the group exhibitions are inaugurated Stretching the Body, dedicated to pictorial works, e Verso – Season 2, dedicated to the younger generations, together with the solo show of the American artist Martine Syms. If you love photography run by Camera Centro Italiano for photography where epic shots of Martin Parr dedicated to the world of sport and finally – among the artistic projects with the greatest social impact and topicality – visit the huge spaces of the OGR Officine Grandi Riparazioni where it has just opened “We want it all. An exhibition on work, between disillusionment and redemption“. For anyone who stays all weekend, it is worth going up to Rivoli, just outside the city: at the Castle, which is one of the #mustsee places of contemporary art, you can immerse yourself in the (intense, visceral) atmospheres of Anne Imhof and of Otobong Nkanga and you will not be disappointed.