Under the artistic direction of Stefano Raimondi, ArtVerona 2023 confirms itself as the opening event of the fall calendar of contemporary art fairs and stands as the venue of choice for the enhancement of the Italian art system. A well-established vocation for participation that over the years has been able to attract an increasingly qualified selection of Italian and international galleries that find at ArtVerona a privileged platform for commercial and artistic relations, dialogues with the different sectors of collecting, entrepreneurship and public and private cultural institutions, also thanks to its collaboration with ANGAMC – Associazione Nazionale Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Italian Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries), a long-time partner and supporter of the event. Many new contents are featured this year at ArtVerona, thanks to unprecedented synergies with key players in the contemporary art scene.

EXHIBITION SECTIONS

Main Section, which welcomes a qualified selection of Galleries from Italy and abroad, will be flanked by three special sections: Innova, dedicated to emerging and experimental galleries that will be able to exhibit, in the form of a solo or group of up to a maximum of three artists, the research on contemporary languages; Introduction, curated by Hannah Eckstein, director of the Grässlin Collection in St. Georgen and artistic director of the Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, involving six young foreign galleries picked by historically acclaimed art galleries that have seen their first steps and have supported their professional growth, thereby demonstrating the ‘intergenerational transmission’ of knowledge that distinguishes the art system; Curated by, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, presenting proposals from galleries that collaborate with a curator to create the stand, so as to showcase the ways in which the relationship between the professional curator, the gallery and the artist is developed. Finally, the collaboration with Giulia Floris is renewed for LAB, which this year includes an extension into the city with a dialogue between the spaces inside and outside the fair.

ADVISORY BOARD

One of the main aspects of this renewal is to be found in the advisory board of ArtVerona, composed of Antonio Coppola, Giorgio Fasol, Massimo Gazzani and Alessia Zorloni, which from 2023 will acquire two new key figures, Katia Da Ros and Virginia Montani Tesei, who will be liaising a strategy of more extensive involvement of industrialists and entrepreneurs from the Veneto region and from Italy in general. National vice president of Confindustria with responsibility for the environment, sustainability and culture, Katia Da Ros is vice president and CEO of Irinox spa and president of IrinoxNorth America. Elective assignments include vice-presidency of Unicredit Advisory Board Northeast and Venice Foundation. A collector and contemporary art enthusiast, she attends and supports institutions and networks promoting the culture of the present and is a member of the Advisory Board of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Virginia Montani Tesei, an attorney, is founder of the Montani Tesei Law Firm in Rome specializing in assisting businesses and individuals in the areas of Art and Cultural Heritage Law, Intellectual Property, IT and Media – Copyright and Related Rights, Trademarks and Design. Appointed for the two-year period 2022-2024 as an expert in art and cultural heritage law within the Culture Group of Confindustria with a particular focus on contemporary art and business, through her firm Virginia Montani Tesei, in one of the most difficult moments of recent years, chose ArtVerona to give life to the Montani Tesei Prize to support young artists and to share her experience in the field of corporate and private collecting.

CALENDAR AND FORMAT

The contemporary art expert Nicolas Ballario, who appears on Sky Arte and is a speaker on Radio Rai, has been entrusted with Cabaret, the Talk program that this year seeks to revolutionise the concept of meetings at art fairs: no longer lectures for insiders only but appointments with an almost theatrical flavour to narrate the contemporary. There are three types of “Cabaret”: fast-paced 25-minute speaking marathons where participants will have a maximum of two minutes each to present a book, a museum or an exhibition; one against all, where “very particular” figures will be put on trial by the art world and vice versa; the show LIVES, conceived by musician Rodrigo D’Erasmo, multi-instrumentalist, composer and member of Afterhours, and by Ballario himself who presents on stage with words and music the life of a leading contemporary artist. The first Live will be a lead-up to the fair, scheduled for Friday, 31 March at 9 p.m. in the Loggia di Fra’ Giocondo in Verona’s Piazza dei Signori, as part of Vinitaly & The City, featuring Nicolas Ballario narrating the hyperbolic life of Maurizio Cattelan, set to music by Rodrigo D’Erasmo and Giulio Favero. After last year’s success, the Habitat format returns, the cultural project dedicated to getting to know important environments of great historical Italian artists, conceived as immersive spaces inside the fair capable of creating engaging patterns of fruition and offering visitors a novel viewing experience. Each of the two pavilions of the fair will host a Habitat. The third will be realised in the city, in a sort of fil rouge connecting the “inside with the outside”. Another comeback is Visiting Curator, curated by Maria Chiara Valacchi, involving directors and curators of museums from around the world to create a dialogue between the Italian and international art systems. Also confirmed for 2023 is the Standchat project entrusted to Saverio Verini, a format that offers the public the chance to meet vis-à-vis the artists featured at the fair inside the galleries representing them. The starting point is a specific work of art, capable of “speaking to the public” also through the words of the artist and the curator.

VISUAL AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

ArtVerona this year has a new look that, inspired by cartography, imagines new worlds and redesigns, with abstract forms and powerful colours, places of the spirit that invite viewers to explore, discover and travel but also encourage them to share cultural spaces.

ART&THECITY

Finally, the program of partnership with the local public and private cultural entities, including the Civic Museums, the Academy of Fine Arts, the University of Verona, Fondazione Cariverona, E.ART.H, Palazzo Maffei and Teatro Nuovo, is strengthened so as to offer visitors a new model of artistic enjoyment that can encompass the various disciplines of art, from visual art to music and theater.