Public diplomacy activities are resumed with contemporary art and the Italian Embassy in London will offer a series of initiatives, from 13 to 18 October, in connection with the #Italy4Art event.
Kicking off with Spotlight Italia, a special project within the StART Art Fair at the Saatchi Gallery. For the first time, StART has dedicated a special area to Italy in its Projects section. Curated by Marco Tonelli and Serenella Ciclitira, this showcase of contemporary Italian art is realised with the direct collaboration of the Embassy. The aim is to go beyond the traditional view of Italian art, often intrinsically associated with more classical and Renaissance movements, by bringing to London the work of seven Italian artists who embody the broader national context: a dynamic, modern and evolving atmosphere in which a glorious past inspires new expressions of creativity.
It continues with Italy at Frieze, an initiative launched in 2019 to celebrate and promote Italian art in London on the occasion of Frieze London, one of the world’s largest contemporary art events. Eighteen galleries taking part in Frieze London and Frieze Masters will exhibit exclusively in the halls of the Embassy, curated by art historian and curator Flavia Frigeri, as many works of post-war and contemporary Italian art. The exhibition-event “Italy at Frieze” opens on 14 October at 19:00. The programme of Italy at Frieze will be supplemented in this edition by two further meetings, scheduled on 15 October. In the morning, there will be a breakfast talk in residence entitled: “A view from London. Perspectives on Italian contemporary art”, with the artist Gaia Fugazza, the writer and artistic director of In Between Film/Art Alessandro Rabottini and Flavia Frigeri.
On the afternoon of the 15th, Italy at Frieze will host a special edition of Italy4Innovation, the Italian Embassy’s event dedicated to innovation and technological cooperation between Italy and the United Kingdom. The theme of the meeting is the revolution introduced by digitization in the art world. Works of art created and marketed as non-fungible tokens have recently become one of the most hotly debated topics among art professionals, with some pieces fetching million-dollar prices. Art critics, artists, technology experts, galleries and auction houses will discuss the phenomenon from a variety of perspectives: commercial, artistic, technological and social. The cycle will be ideally wrapped up on 18 October with the Italian Design Day entitled “Gio Ponti’s Legacy in Contemporary Italian Design”, with Salvatore Licitra (Gio Ponti’s grandson) and Giulia Molteni, organised in collaboration with Taschen.
