The art season in Milan reopens today after the summer break with a series of events and exhibition openings organized by START, an association founded in 2006 that connects 29 of the most interesting art galleries in town, such as Massimo de Carlo, Kaufmann Repetto, Francesca Minini, Zero, and Lia Rumma among others.
Last year the event attracted 25,000 visitors. This figure is expected to be higher this year, thanks to an extremely rich and varied program, which covers 10 days (double from last year) and includes exhibitions, conferences, and screenings. Filmhouse Spazio Oberdan, for example, is holding a special retrospective dedicated to the work of renowned Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni with a one-night screening of his masterpieces: “The Outcry,” “Blow Up” and “Eclipse.”
START President Pasquale Leccese, owner of the gallery Le Case d’Arte, said: “This year it was necessary to give a strong message. It is a good omen for the beginning of the new season, and it shows our will of being active interlocutors in animating contemporary art in the city. So we decided to open the season with an out-and-out festival of contemporary art. Beyond the 26 galleries that take part in the initiative, we have programmed 10 days of contemporary art that include many institutions in town.”
In his gallery, Pasquale Leccese will present an exhibition by German artist Rosemarie Trockel, titled “Prisoners of Yourself.” The centerpiece of the show is a screen printing on wall of 14 x 1.4 meters that reproduces a knitting pattern, a leitmotif in her work.
Another highlight of the START week is Rob Pruitt’s exhibition “Faces: People and Panda” at Massimo De Carlo’s gallery. It is the first solo presentation of the American artist at the gallery. It will include glittering pandas, smiles and irreverent sculptures that, behind their kitsch aspect, hide criticism towards the contradictions of the society and the art world.
Kaufmann Repetto will show a double solo show by Fausto Falchi, a young Italian artist, and Dan Perjovschi, a Rumanian artist who is known for his cartoon-like drawings. Lia Rumma shows a project by Anselm Kiefer in which the German artist looks back in history until the time of the Fertile Crescent. Zero Gallery will present, for the first time in Italy, works by Michael E. Smith, a young artist from Detroit who uses materials from the car industry that has so deeply signed the city’s destiny. Zonca & Zonca will highlight one of the protagonists of Italian Postwar art: Mario Schifano, in particular his paintings from the 1980s.
There is place for photography, as well. Camera 16 will dedicate an exhibition to fashion photography, while Ca’ di Fra’ will show portraits of singer and songwriter Fabrizio de Andrè by Mimmo Dabbrescia.
The program of the institutions is not less interesting. The Swiss Institute will host a party and a lecture by Roman Signer, while Museo Pecci Milano will screen video art from China from 1988 to 2011.
The young association “That’s Contemporary” will hold two conferences that are part of a very curious program: a census of all artists living in Milan. The project is called S.A.V.E. Milan and was conceived by Ambra Pittoni and Paul-Flavien Enriquez-Sarano. The curators will open for a month a fictive office of investigations, where they will collect the testimonies of the Milan-based artists; they will listen to their personal stories, their needs and their wishes. More than a real census, S.A.V.E. Milan is clearly a performance. The aim is to explore the art scene of Milan, to reinterpret the city through its artists and give a new (and unusual) image of it.
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