Artissima 2017, a unique event on the European cultural scene

Artissima 2017 will inaugurate on Thursday 2 November, welcoming visitors from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 November at the OVAL in #torino. The 24th edition of the #fair will take place for the first time under the guidance of Ilaria Bonacossa, appointed as director in December 2016. 

#artissima confirms its position as a unique #event on the European cultural scene, attracting galleries, artists, collectors and sector professionals from all over the world. 
Renowned on an international level for its focus on experimental practices and constant innovation from one year to the next, in 2017 the #fair will feature a series of new developments that will impact both its programme and organisation. Besides the recently announced Disegni (Drawings) section, the revised team of curatorsand an innovative digital platform, #artissima will be enhanced by further ideas and initiatives: a special exhibition project, the “Deposito d’Arte Italiana Presente” (Warehouse of Present-Day Italian Art), a trailblazing programme of talks and a renewed architectural layout for the #fair pavilion. 
“The year 2017 – Ilaria Bonacossa explains – marks the 50th anniversary of the initiatives that were essential to the genesis of #arte Povera. #artissima attempts to trace back to some of the most unconventional experiences of that period, which laid the groundwork for Torino’s status of Italian capital of #contemporaryart. #artissima, as a hybrid space open to the future, will investigate the relationships between artistic practices, the market, collecting and leisure time through the temporary reconstruction of iconic contexts like the Deposito d’Arte Presente (1967–68) or the Piper (1966–69) club. The roots of these experiments in the city led to the birth of important museums and international institutions for #contemporaryart, including the #fair itself. In particular, #artissima considers these experiences in terms of their visionary capacity to reinvent roles and to activate contaminations between different disciplines, while still remaining a source of inspiration for many artists today.” 
The sections 
#artissima 2017 will present a new layout of its spaces designed by the studio Vudafieri Saverino Partnersof Milano, enhancing the pavilion and the fair’s various projects.
These include the new curated Disegni section, joining the four existing sections (Main Section, New Entries, Dialogue and Art Editions) and the curated sections (Present Future and Back to the Future), for a total of seven. 
The Disegni section focuses on the particular nature of drawing as a form of expression, a techn ique capable of capturing the immediacy of the creative gesture and the thinking behind it, hovering in a space between the idea and finished work. This section is curated by an exceptional duo: Luís Silva and João Mourão, directors of Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon. 
The new exhibition project
Curated by Ilaria Bonacossa and Vittoria Martini, the “Deposito d’Arte Italiana Presente” (Warehouse of Present-Day Italian Art) is Artissima’s new cultural project on Italian art. The Deposito will contain remarkable works loaned by Piedmont-based institutions and private collections, together with pieces from the galleries taking part in the #fair, acknowledging their outstanding role in shaping the history of #contemporaryart in our country.
For this new project, #artissima has taken inspiration from one of the most innovative experiences in 1960s #torino, a moment of great artistic vitality: the Deposito d’Arte Presente (1967–68). A place of production and display of works by emerging artists organised by Marcello Levi (1922–2014), the Deposito – in the words of the scholar Robert Lumley – was “an extemporaneous, non-permanent collection... a space for the present, for a type of art connected to the hic et nunc and stripped of any sacred character.”
With the “Deposito d’Arte Italiana Presente” #artissima retrieves that format, shifting it into the present time and using it as a conceptual setting for a project that absorbs the operative modes of the original. The Deposito is not really an exhibition, but a place to trigger a narration on the last 20 years of Italian art, to capture it today and understand its future developments, creating a dynamic place for display and discussion.
#artissima therefore is not just a platform for curatorial research, but also a public manifestation of the space in which gallerists, collectors and museums conserve works. 
#artissima 2017
Oval, Lingotto Fiere Torino
2 November 2017
Press presentation, preview, opening 3-4-5 November 2017 | Open to the public