The 29th edition will be led for the first time by Luigi Fassi, Artissima’s new Director. Artissima 2022 will offer initiatives that confirm its unique position on the European cultural scene and its ability to attract the most interesting galleries, artists, collectors and curators on an international level, with the promise – always kept – of an experimental, cutting-edge event. From Friday 4 to Sunday 6 November 2022, the large, luminous spaces of the Oval in Turin will welcome the four flagship sections of the fair – Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue and Art Spaces & Editions – and three curated sections – Disegni, Present Future and Back to the Future – with the participation of 174 Italian and international galleries, including 35 monographic projects.
The galleries of Artissima 2022 come from 28 countries and 4 continents with 40 exhibitors participating in the fair for the first time.
In the words of the newly appointed director Luigi Fassi: „In a phase of change of many institutional models of presentation of contemporary art, the 29th iteration of Artissima in Turin speaks first of all of the fair’s ability to reinforce its double identity of a market platform and a place of cultural production, enhancing both aspects. What stands out this year is the quality of the Italian and international network of the fair, which implements its action of research on a global level to continue to offer collectors and museum professionals an experience of discovery, with works, galleries and artists at a very high level from Europe, America, Africa and Asia.
The 40 galleries taking part in Artissima for the first time in 2022 bear witness to the fair’s appeal and its status as a catalyst of experiments, research and investment in the art market.
Visiting the fair in Turin is an experience that brings together collectors, curators and art lovers, and those who wager on Artissima will be rewarded by the fact that they have been enabled to intercept the works and artists that will be the protagonists of the near future”. Internationally renowned for its focus on pioneering practices, and its role as a launch pad for up-and-coming artists and galleries, Artissima attracts a large audience of collectors, sector professionals and art lovers every year. With each edition, the fair welcomes curators, directors of art institutions and foundations, as well as the patrons of museums from all over the world who are involved in various ways in its programme. The vitality of Artissima resonates throughout the city, thanks to the many cultural projects produced in collaboration with public institutions, museums, foundations and galleries across the region. Artissima contributes to the growth of the Italian contemporary art market, stimulating and supporting collectors with an eye for innovation, and a continuously evolving critical and curatorial vision. The organization of Artissima is overseen by Artissima srl, a company affiliated with Fondazione Torino Musei, and formed in 2008 to manage the fair’s artistic and commercial relations. The Artissima trademark belongs to Città di Torino, Regione Piemonte and Città Metropolitana di Torino. The 29th edition of Artissima, for the first time under the patronage of Ministero della cultura, takes place with the support of the three brand-owning authorities, jointly with Fondazione CRT, Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Camera di Commercio di Torino.
The theme of the 29th edition. The theme selected for this year is Transformative Experience, a concept developed by the American philosopher L.A. Paul (professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Yale University) in the essay of the same title published in 2014 by Oxford University Press. According to the author, a transformative experience is able to radically modify the person who lives it, triggering a crisis of rationally envisioned expectations and opening a perspective on the unknown.
Demarco Mosby, Fall, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 152,4×121,9 cm | Courtesy of the artist and Luce Gallery 
IDA TURSIC & WILFRIED MILLE, La domestication, 2020, oil on canvas, 200x150x5 cm. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli. Photo: Francesco Squeglia
“In recent years – Luigi Fassi writes – the art world as a whole has witnessed changes in its rules, modes of exchange and informative interactions between sector professionals and art lovers, navigating towards multiple horizons of transformation. Nevertheless, the urgency of interpersonal encounter and relational immediacy remains vivid, dictated by the desire to know and to experience art in real time, and to continue to be in touch with all the new developments that are emerging on the present scene. Precisely the theme of how all of us will go through the outbreak of transformative experiences in our lives provides the central inspiration for Artissima 2022. A transformative experience opens up new horizons to our senses, our thoughts and emotions, to the point of being able to profoundly change us as people. The American contemporary philosopher Laurie Anne Paul, in her book Transformative Experience, asserts that personally transformative experiences are the ones we cannot rationally predict or anticipate in any way, because nothing can take the place of the living revelation of a territory as yet unknown to us.”
The new visual identity. The coordinated image for 2022, based on the theme Transformative Experience, has been assigned for the fifth consecutive year to the Turin-based graphic design studio FIONDA, who describe it as follows: “When we talk about the present, we think of a liquid temporal abstraction, an eternally mutable here and now.
In this incessant everyday movement, multidimensional frames accompany us like shadows by our side, by which we might be captured or absorbed or swallowed up: they are like sliding doors, breaches in space-time, only fleetingly visible, shape-shifting presences that vanish and reappear. Dazzlements, visual flashes, mobile geometries that meet us, seduce us, tempt us, unconsciously offering the attraction of entry into other worlds, passages towards our unknown self, gateways to the palace of all our possible transformations.
They are like contemporary sirens we push to the outskirts of our gaze, repressing them, immersed as we are in a hyperactive stream of perceptible stimuli. Suddenly, we can halt our automatic advance and try to intentionally stumble into their midst. Because it is only by defying mystery that we can understand all of our potential metamorphoses.”
15 new entries – emerging galleries that opened less than 5 years. Taking part in Artissima for the first time:
Baleno International Roma – Bivy Anchorage – Eugester || Belgrade Belgrade – max goelitz Munich – Robert Grunenberg Berlin – Import Export Warsaw – Noah Klinik Berlin – Longtermhandstand Budapest – Nordés Santiago de Compostela – pal project Paris – Niru Ratnam London – Sainte Anne Paris – Sandwich Bucharest – Sociét Interludio Torino – Sweetwater Berlin
Key new features of the 2022 edition (in brief) Fair & Galleries. The Selection Commitee. The selection committee of the galleries taking part in the Main Section, New Entries, Monologue/Dialogue and Art Spaces & Editions involves an international team of gallerists composed of Isabella Bortolozzi (Isabella Bortolozzi gallery, Berlin), Paola Capata (Monitor gallery, Rome, Lisbon, Pereto), Philippe Charpentier (mor charpentier gallery, Paris, Bogotà), Raffaella Cortese (Raffaella Cortese gallery,Milan), Nikolaus Oberhuber (KOW gallery, Berlin) and Alessandro Pasotti, (P420 gallery, Bologna), joined by a new member, Antoine Levi (Ciaccia Levi gallery, Paris, Milan). Caterina Avataneo, an independent curator based in Turin, is confirmed as curatorial consultant for the New Entries section, set aside for young galleries open for less than five years that are taking part in Artissima for the first time.
The curated sections and Artissima Voice Over. This year the three curated sections of the fair will be back with a physical presence at the fair, with thematic booths and revised curatorial teams: Disegni is curated by Irina Zucca Alessandrelli, curator of Collezione Ramo in Milan; Present Future is curated by Saim Demircan, an independent curator and writer based in Turin, and Maurin Dietrich, director of the Kunstverein München in Munich; Back to the Future is curated by Anna Gritz, director of Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, and Balthazar Lovay, an independent curator based in Geneva. Besides their physical presence inside the fair, the curated sections will also be visible on a specific digital platform, Artissima Voice Over, created thanks to the support of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo.
Artissima Voice Over is a cross-media space that offers an extensive overview of the work of all the players involved in every project: the gallery, the artist, the curators. Some of the contents will be produced directly by the galleries and artists, while others will be created by the editorial team Treti Galaxie – consisting of Matteo Mottin and Ramona Ponzini – with the contribution of the video production company Like Usual, in collaboration with FIONDA.
Curatorial Advisors: In 2022, Artissima introduces a new development to add value to its innovative, pioneering identity. Julie Boukobza (independent curator, Paris, and Head of the Luma Arles Residency Program, Arles) and Krist Gruijthuijsen (director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin) are the Curatorial Advisors for this iteration of the fair. Together with the Selection Committee and the team of curators, they will contribute to formulate and convey a proposal for 2022 that will underscore the experimental character of Artissima, bringing out the fair’s distinctive focus on discovery and rediscovery of the most interesting realities of contemporary art on the international scene.
Artissima Art Fair – www.artissima.art
Press Contact: PCM Studio – https://www.paolamanfredi.com/
