THESE DAYS, Milano Art Week lasts for about a month. By Monday, April 1—when Fondazione Adolfo Pini hosted the kickoff event for this year’s edition—my yesterdays had already been filled with dozens of openings. Indeed, the density of programs by the art fair Miart is pushing many institutions and galleries to advance their events in order to take better advantage of the wealth of excitement (and, simply, wealth) in the city.
A very Milanese sense of discretion emerged at this year’s Art Week. A quiet Marco Tronchetti Provera was seen alongside Sheela Gowda at the presentations at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca. Elena Quarestani was at Assab One, her former printing house, with Andrea Mastrovito, Andrea Branzi, and Chiaki Maki, while gallerists such as Gió Marconi dined at an old trattoria with a few friends to celebrate Joep van Lieshout. Heiner Wemhöner staged an impeccably curated selection of work by artists in his collection—Isaac Julien, Masbedo, Julian Rosefeldt, Yang Fudong—at the Palazzo Dugnani. The thousands of black butterflies that filled Fondazione Adolfo Pini for Carlos Amorales’s L’Ora Dannata (The Accursed Hour) served as a counterbalance to Lygia Pape’s rigorous rays of gilded thread at the Fondazione Carriero, feted a few days prior by a sophisticated mix of Milan’s international set as summoned by Giorgio Carriero, a paramount if prudent patron.
Beatrice Trussardi, through the Fondazione Trussardi, made a donation of Ibrahim Mahama’s deinstalled A Friend, a prodigious jute sack–wrapping of two historical tollgates. Trussardi is a shy person, and while the city’s heavyweights cross paths at her banquets, little is recorded about these encounters other than on these pages. The same holds true for publisher Achille Mauri, who invited a scant thirty people to celebrate Iwan and Manuela Wirth. Mauri engaged in discussions with the Wirths, Milan’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, and James Bradburne, director of the Brera, regarding the future of Palazzo Citterio. Maria Grazia Chiuri, creative director of Dior and sponsor of “Unexpected Subject: 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy,” gave a touching speech, thanking the many women artists—now nearly all in their eighties—in attendance at the FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea.
Over the years, this close-knit and curious city has let Miart prosper, anchored by institutions and cherished by the public. Galleries such as Cabinet, Corvi-Mora, Marian Goodman, Hauser & Wirth, Herald St, Thaddeus Ropac, Andrew Kreps, Barbara Gladstone, Bortolami, Isabella Bortolozzi, Campoli Presti, and ChertLüdde allowed select international collectors to deftly make acquisitions (and afterward, for once, sleep in their own beds). The icing on the cake: a beautiful exhibition and performance by Anna Maria Maiolino at PAC. That day, at Thinking Italian Milan, Christie’s white-glove annual auction in Italy, everything sold.
What else? On Friday, April 5, Angela Missoni unveiled an incredible house fashioned entirely from crochet by Alessandra Roveda, while Marco Balich, organizer of Olympic ceremonies, presented an installation underneath the navigation sluices designed by Leonardo da Vinci in the former naviglio canals. The city’s various offerings weren’t just for VIPs. There was C+N Canepaneri’s opening for Alberto Garutti, an artist treasured by younger practitioners, and at Nowhere Gallery, Fabrizio Vatieri convinced gallery owner Orio Vergani to participate in the his Buchi nell’acqua (Holes in the Water) performance. At Kreëmart, Raphaël Castoriano and I ate macarons inspired by the memories of Tony Oursler. They tasted Oursler-esque.
Finally, there was no better way to spend Sunday than by visiting the San Paolo Converso church to experience Words, Allan Kaprow’s 1962 participatory installation, for which audiences write on various material supports. Thanks to curator Alexander May, I was able to enter before the opening and make my mark on the untouched sheets. Amen.
Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore.
