This is not an online exhibition nor a viewing room: with this new curatorial project, the Turin fair aims at a renewed exchange between galleries and collectors. with the intent to bring even a younger pool of buyers closer.
The search for the Turin fair continues through curatorial experimentation and new forms of contemporary communication. This time Artissima focuses entirely on digital, inaugurating the Fondamenta project which will be online for a month, from June 5th to July 5th 2020.
Fondamenta Artissima
Fondamenta answers the question of what is the center of a fair: that is, galleries, structural elements on which all the actors of the system move. The platform therefore represents an opportunity offered free of charge to the latter, to continue to weave new relationships and exchanges while waiting for the kermis to open in its physical version, scheduled from 6 to 8 November 2020 at the Oval Lingotto in Turin.
At a time when much of the attention of international art is shifted to online exhibitions and virtual tours, Artissima says it does not want to place its new project either in the viewing room or in the virtual fair.
Fondamenta is “a survey of contemporary artistic research, aimed at offering the galleries of the fair free of charge new opportunities for visibility, sales and contact with the art public”.
How the new Artissima project works
194 works are presented by Fondamenta, one for each gallery among those that participated in the 2019 edition of the fair. The exhibitors will be presented through a simple and intuitive interface, on virtual pages imagined as ideal bearing walls.
Each wall corresponds to a section: Present Future, curated by Ilaria Gianni and Fernanda Brenner; Back to the Future, curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Mouna Mekouar; Drawings, curated by Letizia Ragaglia and Bettina Steinbrügge; New Entries, curated by Valerio Del Baglivo and Main Section, on this occasion curated by Ilaria Bonacossa.
A partially renovated curatorial team that selected the works to be exhibited for the virtual project – each working on its own section of competence – through close dialogue and different criteria each time.
Fondamenta: new exchange format between public and galleries
“Investigating contemporary art and discovering the trends, shared themes, obsessions or visions of individual artists: it is a passion that I share with the gallery owners of whom I admire the special ability to identify hidden talents”, comments the director of Artissima Ilaria Bonacossa.
And he continues, “Fondamenta was born thanks to the extraordinary curatorial team of Artissima 2020, showing its work in progress, pursuing the aim of giving galleries the opportunity to take part in a collective project in a very delicate moment for the world of ‘art. A small, well-kept project that offers the public an experience that can also be enjoyed in time. Giving new stimuli to discover contemporary art, supporting our galleries in a new way and teaming up to collectively propose a virtual meeting both to new contemporary lovers and to collectors of every generation.