How challenging can it be for art students to find themselves catapulted into a vibrant dialogue with prominent gallery owners, collectors, sharp critics and professionals, without neglecting the exhilaration of enthusiasm that pervades the student’s spirit? It is a prodigious challenge, permeated with fertile stimuli, where the student has the opportunity to manifest artistic awareness. The ninth edition of Opentour, which took place within the framework of the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts, under the expert care of Carmen Lorenzetti and Giuseppe Lufrano, not only opens the doors of the Academy itself, allowing the flourishing of audacious talents, but also involves twenty-eight galleries in the region, creating an invaluable link between academic training and the working reality. Giovani talenti in galleria, thanks to the Bologna Academy of Fine Artsand the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries Confcommercio Ascom Bologna offers the opportunity to see the research of young students outside the Academy.
Cecilia Grelli, Polveri nobili e Fievole minuto, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 30×25 cm each. Courtesy of the artist and P420, Bologna. Photo by Carlo Favero.
Starting with the highly relevant gallery and beacon of excellence in the Bologna art scene, P420 presents Le Onde curated by Davide Ferri, in collaboration with Lorena Bucur and Giacomo Mallardo. Like the waves of the Woolfian matrix, the exhibition is an investigation of the mutable nature, such as the use of different media, of the identity of young academic talents. It reminds me of Johan Huizinga’s The Autumn of the Middle Ages, where an undulatory phenomenon is illustrated, with different periods succeeding each other like waves, and where linear phenomena are completely absent. I experienced it as a journey, from the firmament to the ground, via the sea. Anna Tappari, with her elusive performance, between space and voice; Veronica Bragalini, who creates interweavings of geometries and self-portraits as graphic series with soft colors, while Riccardo Brevini ventures into the material with sculptures born from firecracker bursts. Sara Cortesi presents light sculptures that appear to be delicate, kaleidoscopic and fragile sails. Cecilia Grelli dedicates her work to essentiality in painting with evanescent portraits characterized by sparse traits, in harmonic contradiction to the wave that manifests itself with Giulia Querin: sculptures with the trace of a hand, with an delicate fluid balance from floor to wall with intrinsic forces. Moreover, the unstoppable expansion finds its limit in the pictorial works of Jingyan Ding, where it seems that the canvas is soaked in a viscous and iridescent liquid. After such a shipwreck, we reach solid ground with Lucia Letizia Perillo, skillful with the pyrograph, capturing landscapes and architectures on fabric, and then, the fixed point: the anchor installation on the wall by Siyang Jiang.
Opentour 2023, Le onde, installation view, P420, Bologna. Courtesy of P420, Bologna. Photo by Carlo Favero.
Galleria Studio G7 presents a video work by Marco Erpete, which is part of the collective exhibition Space as a duty of care, curated by Daniele Capra. Through videos and scenes from everyday life in the bathroom at home, Marco discreetly shows us how the individual takes care of themselves through discrete framings, with a voyeuristic touch. A woman applying body creams, a man taking a shower. Each moment becomes a symbol of care, starting from one’s own skin. A 15 minute video that, at first glance, may seem common, banal, but then we find ourselves watching it, perceiving its subtler meanings. Watching, watching ourselves—the mirror of humanity.
Marco Erpete, In bagno, 2023, video installation, loop 15’15”. Courtesy of Galleria Studio G7, Bologna.
AF Gallery, presents the exhibition Compresenza degli opposti curated by Carmen Lorenzetti, which plays with color as a translation of mood. Wu Jilan, with soft colors, creates sweet paintings that evoke memories of friendship and love, while Gabriele Ermini, with cerulean hues, evokes the melancholia, a past, a distant fading memory. The chaos of nature is found in a single pictorial space with Donato di Schiena, vibrant and evocative. Francesco Bendini‘s garden gnomes are also captivating.
From left: artworks by Donato Di Schiena, artworks by Jilan Wu, artworks by Francesco Bendini on the floor. Compresenza degli opposti, Courtesy of AF Gallery, Bologna.
LABS Contemporary Art presents La misura delle cose curated by Lelio Aiello, Leonardo Regano, and Valeriia Radkevych. The fil rouge is memory, tradition, and ancestral chant. Starting with Marco Tombini, who deconstructs color and design according to the principles of new geometry, transforming them into mobile sculptures. Irene Gris creates fabrics with the pattern of her own body, a cocoon. Athina Mehry Saraji brings Persian carpets to life with designs inspired by ancient myths, animals, and legends; Daniele Chabonkin Cinquerrui creates a mocking video spot, oscillating between the human and the grotesque, with a strong critique of consumerism. Between placidity and brutality, we find Chantal Stanzione with her complex and textured canvases. Mari presents fabric sculptures with a popular and natural flair.
La misura delle cose, installation view, Opentour, 2023. Courtesy of LABS Contemporary Art, Bologna.
And lastly, GALLLERIAPIÙ with the dual exhibition A Lullaby, featuring Luca Campestri and Riccardo Bellelli. In a state of half-sleep, an elusive memory, Campestri works with night vision and spectrograms, creating faded images. We can discern spiders and deers. They appear so real, simultaneously close and elusive, decaying in memory. On the other hand, Bellelli plays with readymades featuring improbable object associations, from frogs to vacuum cleaners; dreamlike sculptures that are humorous and exhilarating. A lullaby of connections that only manifests in the realm of Orpheus.
Luca Campestri, Trapped, Opentour, 2023, direct print on reflective fabric, 70×95 cm. Courtesy of GALLLERIAPIÙ.
Info:
Opentour
June 22, 2023 – individual availability of exhibition spaces
Bologna
Born in 1999. She falls in love with art by looking at her mother’s paint. She’s studying History of Art at the Ca’ Foscari University (Venice) and in the meantime divulges online videos of art pills. She deals with contemporary art as a critic, curator and artist.
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