MiArt 2007 — F. Milone

MiArt 2007 is inau­gu­rat­ing its 12th year with an expanded, re-dimensioned exhi­bi­tion space, and with Hol­land as its new guest coun­try. As part of the rotat­ing, guest coun­try pro­gram, Holland’s most pres­ti­gious gal­leries will attend the Milan based fair and will fol­low in the foot­steps of last year’s event line-up of select gal­leries from China. Just as the pre­vi­ous year intro­ducd new fron­tiers in the world’s con­tem­po­rary art scene, this year affirms MiArt’s ded­i­ca­tion to a cul­ture of sus­tain­ing and pro­mot­ing con­tem­po­rary and avant-garde art, a cul­ture that MiArt’s orga­niz­ers believe is very much alive in the Dutch tra­di­tion. There is an exam­ple, they say, to be fol­lowed in the pro­gres­sive and cre­ative ways in which Hol­land accom­mo­dates nascent trends in art.

Instead of two pavil­ions, this com­ing year’s MiArt will fea­ture three. Cru­cially, an added pavil­ion will allow for greater dis­tinc­tion between three the­matic areas: the Mod­ern, the Con­tem­po­rary and the Anteprima—in other words, a sec­tion reserved for works con­sid­ered exper­i­men­tal. This last space is exclu­sively open to artists under 35—an ode to the work of young artists, and, more impor­tantly, indica­tive of the orga­niz­ers’ con­vic­tion that emerg­ing artists must be sup­ported and must have a chance to exhibit.

The Anteprima will also play a sig­nif­i­cant role in that it will include a video art sec­tion. For the sec­ond year run­ning, a dark area within the Anteprima, sealed from light, will house numer­ous video art instal­la­tions con­tin­u­ously in play through­out the show. Maria Rosa Sos­sai and Ian White from London’s Whitechapel are the section’s curators.

MiArt endeav­ors, as it has emphat­i­cally done in the past, to bring new blood to the Milanese art scene and it does so suc­cess­fully thanks to a tremen­dously keen eye. The best and the most promis­ing Ital­ian and inter­na­tional gal­leries have always been selected, and scrupu­lously at that. MiArt’s six mem­ber review board, includ­ing Ben­jamin Brown, Clau­dia Gian Fer­rari, Mat­teo Loren­zelli, Mas­simo Mininni, Marco Nic­coli and Carla Pel­le­grini Rocca, exam­ines the appli­ca­tions of can­di­date gal­leries with inge­nu­ity and cir­cum­spec­tion. A for­mal­ized code of ethics guar­an­tees that the mem­bers’ exam­i­na­tion process is trans­par­ent and fair.

Last year, MiArt’s 249 cho­sen gal­leries had over 11,000 square meters of sur­face area at their dis­posal. MiArt is for­tu­nate to occupy the newest of fair venues, Padiglioni del Portello, designed by archi­tect Mario Bellini and opened in 1997. The phe­nom­e­nal space is in fact a bi-level struc­ture with a recep­tion on the sec­ond floor and many sec­tions span­ning up to 12 meters in height. The Mod­ern and Con­tem­po­rary pavil­ions will again be equipped with four-meter-high pan­els, com­fort­ably allow­ing for the exhi­bi­tion of large works and pro­vid­ing museum-like set­tings for indi­vid­ual pieces.

A spe­cial Art&Co. sec­tion, sep­a­rate from the three main pavil­ions and intro­duced in 1994, will also take the floor. It is reserved for works that fit the pecu­liar def­i­n­i­tion of being at once his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary, tee­ter­ing even, on the line between art and design. The pieces on dis­play there are unique; their cre­ators are, for the most part, cel­e­brated, estab­lished artists.

With many gal­leries from around the world—both new and past contributors—confirming their pres­ence for the 2007 edi­tion, MiArt hopes to attract the large num­ber of vis­i­tors that have come in years before. Col­lab­o­ra­tions with gal­leries from Paris, such as Gal­lerie 1900–2000 and Thessa Herold, or from Tokyo, Helsinki or Barcelona, and includ­ing a litany of major Ital­ian gal­leries, have cre­ated the impres­sive and ever-expanding net­work upon which MiArt relies. Always eager to see new growth, the event this year will include a good many exhibitors sure to both meet and sur­pass the expec­ta­tions of its inter­na­tional public.