The seeds of art are scattered everywhere in this edition of Art Week coming soon, from 8 to 14 April. They flourish in an unusual poster format, from Comasina to Gratosoglio. Among the authors there are true masters of displacing the advertising image such as Richard Prince or Sylvie Fleury, with the writing, on a Barbie pink background, “Égoïste”, playing with the men’s fragrance of the same name by Chanel. Of course, the method, although democratic, remains ephemeral and certainly low cost, but it has the advantage of breaking away from customs, to intercept new gazes.
There are a thousand 100×70 centimeter posters distributed by the Art Office in Public Spaces. The project “Posterinthecity” collects the baton from its creator, an unstoppable and prescient experimenter outside the box as Pasquale Leccese. It is a tribute to the recently deceased gallery owner, former artistic director of Miart from 2001 to 2007, dedicated to initiatives without elitism, such as the party that put the galleries online, Start. The idea of a “metropolitan museum” also arises with Trussardi Foundation in an explosion of billboards of 70 artists, from Petrit Halilaj to Paola Pivi.
The art week, as usual as a corollary to Miart (from 12 to 14 April), brings together a huge number of initiatives, inside and outside the museums, inside and outside the fair. The schedule reaches the 180 events, of which 110 are exhibitions and 140 are the entities involved, including galleries, archives and institutions. Added to this is a unique and unrepeatable position in the art calendars, in the week preceding the opening of the Venice Biennale and Salone del Mobile. Critics, journalists, artists, boards of major museums can thus take advantage of the combination of Milan-Venice, but also of art-design. «Beyond the usual places, with special attention to civic museums, art takes new paths, in all municipalities and suburbs», he explains the councilor for culture Tommaso Sacchi. «There are many interdisciplinary initiatives, with a recurrence of the art-cinema combination».
The week opens with the screening on Sunday at Mudec of a documentary dedicated to Enrico Baj for the centenary of his birth. Anteo Palazzo del Cinema hosts the video art exhibition “Comete”curated by Careof for Miart, but not only.
Among the major exhibitions, already inaugurated, Prada Foundation points to Pino Pascali and Pirelli HangarBicocca in Nari Ward. The Pac hosts the exhibition of an artist with urgent and political themes such as Adrian Piper with a free opening day on Saturday 13 April offered by Generali Bankwhich also opens its collection Bg ArTalent, revealing the acquisition of a work by Francesco Vezzoli.
And the Museum of the Twentieth Century to inaugurate, with a poker of exhibitions. The dialogue between a young Cypriot artist Haris Epaminonda and the masterpieces in the collection is accompanied by a focus on the history of Milanese galleries. The Triennale also inaugurates, with insights into masters of art and architecture, such as Dan Graham with his disorienting glass pavilions and Alessandro Mendini, with its irrepressible chromatic energy. Masbedo acts as a bridge between the two institutions with a performance and a video installation. The duo reactivates an experimental sound work by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna from 1954, a sound portrait of a Milan launched towards reconstruction.
At the Steam Factory, an insight into artist residencies as well as a very current series on the city of Ugo La Pietra. Ica presents the sculpture in the original forms of Erika Verzutti and the highly refined conceptual design of the young masters of the project Ghostform. There is no shortage of excellence in private galleries, such as the solo show of a master of space and sculpture like Paolo Icaro, from Lia Rumma.
