Piccola Galleria is located in via Marsala 31/d, in Bologna, an appendix of the historic Caffè Rubik. The project was born about three years ago by a group of young people involved in the artistic world. What on the surface may seem like a normal shop window quickly transformed into an exhibition venue. From that day to today, the notoriety of the gallery has increased and so have those who are fond of the project, including me.
Piccola Galleria, Federico Falanga solo show, “Sunset n.1. F. F. 2023-12V”, December 2023, photo by Sara Sani, courtesy Piccola Galleria
The organization of the space is structured as it follows: from year to year the curatorship is passed as in a relay race from one curator to another. This year, from December 2023, everything is managed by Sara Sani and Olivia Teglia. Sara Sani, born in 1984, is also a visual artist and art advisor. She has lived and traveled in many places around the world since 2008, when she moved to Barcelona and started working as a photographer. She has worked for many streetwear fashion magazines and brands and as a freelancer between Paris, Los Angeles, New York and Paris. Olivia Teglia, on the other hand, was born in 1995 and is an independent curator. She graduated from the two-year specialist course in Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and since 2017 has been part of the curatorial duo Exit. Since 2022 she has been president and member of the cultural association and multidisciplinary artistic collective Asap. She is assistant of the Visual Arts course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. To find out more I decided to meet them, obviously over an aromatic coffee sipped at Rubik.
From the left: Olivia Teglia, photo by Stefano Maniero; Sara Sani, courtesy Piccola Galleria
Sara Papini: How did your journey as curators of this space begin?
Sara Sani: My journey began about two years ago, when the curatorship was still managed by another boy, then he passed the baton to another girl and when she finished her year she asked me to manage it. So, I immediately thought of creating a double curation and sharing it with Olivia. What we would like to do is propose an artist every month, above all to keep it active, given that it is a gallery open 24 hours a day, seven days a week so there is always traffic.
Olivia Teglia: We also try, month by month, to connect to what happens in the city, as it happened with Art City, for example. Piccola Galleria is a truly particular situation: it allows you to experiment a lot, especially with the public who is often unaware that they are drinking a coffee next to works on display.
Piccola Galleria, Orecchie d’asino solo show, photo by Sara Sani, February 2024, courtesy Piccola Galleria
What does it mean to intervene on a space of this type and who was the first artist you proposed?
Olivia: We started around Christmas time. On that occasion we proposed a solo show by Federico Falanga, who exhibited a work with neon light. It was an installation that clearly dialogued with the Christmas lights that appeared around the city. Obviously, the game was amazing. Often you don’t even know if you’re looking at an artwork or not. The second proposed project concerned Orecchie D’Asino (a duet composed by Ornella De Carlo and Federica Porro), in a double dialogue with Arte Fiera, given that they were also on display there.
Sara: We have many ideas in common, but we haven’t yet set the schedule until December: we’re also leaving open the possibility of something improvised, precisely because we don’t want to be too rigid.
Piccola Galleria, Piss them off solo show, photo by Sara Sani, March 2024, courtesy Piccola Galleria
Who did you host on March 8th?
Olivia: We called a duo that is part of my association. They also work individually, one is a dancer and the other is a performer and visual artist: Lucia Fontanelli and Bianca Zueneli. This project began years ago and was born from a journey that the two authors took together. They simply took photos of each other in a very simple moment: urinating in the sea, on the rocks. This hyper-animal and liberating gesture inserted in this context today, on this porch, seemed to us the right thing to do. Not hiding the body is a political act, it is a metaphorical and liberating gesture. Of all the photos we chose two and placed them in dialogue with each other.
Sara: For this month, we also decided to do a live show, since we are both DJs. We have therefore composed a mixtape which, after the vernissage at the Rubik, will play in the background for the entire month. Our DJ sets come from reggae and cumbia. The tracks we have selected are all by female artists or non-binary people and are real feminist manifestos.
Info:
Piccola Galleria
via Marsala 31/d, Bologna
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/piccola_galleria/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/piccolagalleriapiccolabologna/
She was born in Genoa but currently lives in Bologna, the city where she graduated from CITEM with a thesis on video art. She works in the world of events in the production sector and is an assistant professor of Visual Studies at UNIBO.
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