The last weekend of January, the center of contemporary art moves in Bologna, transformed by Arte Fiera and by a myriad of scattered events throughout the city in a feast for the eyes and a tonic for the mind. The art is never enough and has the power to produce beauty everywhere reactivating space otherwise left to themselves to convert them into powerful generators of emotions and thoughts: this is precisely the starting point of Simona Gavioli and Alice Zannoni , untiring animators of independent SetUp fair, now in its fourth edition, which takes place in the rooms of Autostazione delle Corriere in Bologna in the same days of Arte Fiera.

The intent is to capture and disseminate the most interesting artistic trends that reflect real-time rapid changes of the contemporary world, create a way to meet and dialogue between young people and important figures of the cultural system, offer the emerging artists the opportunity of exposing at a low cost on a stage which becomes every year more and more international. Not only an exhibition but a cultural project to live in the name of participation with a varied program of free events aimed at enthusiasts , curious people and experts. The issue of connection between all the actions proposed is orientation, that is intended as recognizing where you are in order to understand how to move and where to go. It is an essential prerogative of the full expression of identity in an increasingly complex reality, it is also an essential tool to extricate in the chaotic contemporary art world both from a creative point of view and from a critic and collector one.

So it remains unchanged the initial format that invites exhibitors (this year 44 Italian and foreign galleries) to have at least a project conceived by a curator and an artist under 35 who will compete for the annual SetUp prize. Among the novelties of this edition deserves a special mention the project Drawing the world – Focus Santander by Mónica Álvarez Careaga, a selection of four Spanish artists represented by four galleries offering their interpretation of the world through the medium of design that becomes from time to time figurative, minimalist narrative or philosophical. The traditional pattern of the trade fair stand is flanked by a section dedicated to 14 Special Project presenting new and particularly innovative works. Among these we point Ozzehg and Castle of Chiara by Paolo Balboni focused on a series of photographs depicting a surreal model enveloped by a gently and undetermined atmosphere and Exposure by Marco Biscardi that advocates an absurd but possible future in which famous advertising brands dominate in context of war and disaster without any regard for the drama of the situation. The project Directions instead goes beyond the premises of the exhibition to expand in the atrium of the bus with an operation of wall painting made by street artists Corn79 and ETNIK. A public place used as a hurried and distracted transit point if transfigured by art can become a source of estrangement and new perceptions through a chromatic path where abstract geometries and perspectives flutter.

Just in this renovated space will take place (free of charge and freely available) the sessions of meetings and talks, which will be opened by the intervention of the Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci Fabio Cavallucci, and the performative review In Corpo VI curated by Giovanni Gaggia for Sponge ArteContemporanea . For the festival, which declines the main theme in the solicitation of its opposite with the deliberate creation of disorientation, will alternate great interpreters of the visual arts and contemporary dance that will relate with the other provoking debate on what type of performance belongs to one category or another. Special guest Gianni Colosimo, renowned professional in the field of performing arts who in the 70s took part in Bologna to the Second and Fourth Week Performance, will perform a crazy ritual dance with a music played by Eros and Thanatos.
If art can be a lifestyle and an intelligent habit, a VIP Lounge designed by Paolo Castelli, some workshops for children and the Opening Party to be held from 23:00 Thursday in the adjacent bicycles station Dynamo with alternatives electronic and visual atmospheres will propose new models of sociability and enjoyment of contemporary art.

Info:
SetUp Art Fair
January 29-31, 2016
Opening: 28 January h. 20.00 invitation only
January 29 and 30 h. 17.00-1.00, January 31h. 12.30-22.00
Ticket: 5 euros
Autostazione di Bologna, Piazza XX Settembre 6