| The Bologna art fair has the honour of being the first art fair of the year, and the 2006 fair gave the year an optimistic start, with sales and visitors in the high figures and an unusual programme of fringe events. |  |
Gravity and Grace – Nolan Wooten
The Bologna art fair has the honour of being the first art fair of the year, and the 2006 fair gave the year an optimistic start, with sales and visitors in the high figures and an unusual programme of fringe events.
International curator, Achilles Bonita Oliva, inaugurated the first ever inclusion of a critic in the exhibition space of an art fair, with his project inviting six artists to detail an artwork that has until this point only been an idea. The place of the critic in the current art world has been a matter of debate. How the critic has even the hope of a place in an art world driven by business done at art fairs has not been clear. Other art fairs have curated sculpture programs and fringe talks and roundtable discussions, but these are too obviously on the outskirts of the main circus. Others also have stands for magazines and art-book presses, but these are only for peddling wares and not for promoting the business of opinion alongside the business of commerce. Maybe Bonita Oliva’s stand is a clue to how it can happen.
Young galleries from Eastern Europe and from the rest of Europe made appearances at Bologna in the L’Esprit Nouveau section, lending an unusual savoir faire to the fair. In recent years Russian painters have been showing more in London, in relatively young galleries like Vilma Gold. The recent Serpentine show of the perennial ambassadors Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and the firm place of Oleg Kulik in the artistic consciousness are more signifiers of the consistent influence of artists from this part of the world.
This visitor was confused, however, by the strange divisions of the fair. Some of the galleries in the main sector were much younger than those in the L’Esprit Nouveau section.
The rising performance of Italian artists and galleries on the international forum was another big factor in the success of the fair. The Lorcan O’ Neill gallery of Rome is an example of the increasing cosmopolitan feel of the Italian art scene. O’Neill, a graduate of the former Anthony d’Offay empire of London, has set up shop in Rome showing artists including YBA’s Tracey Emin and Sam Taylor-Wood as well as d’Offay favourite, Richard Long. Solid Italian artists such as the dreamy painter Manfredi Beninati, who represented Italy at the last Venice Biennale, and the bold Luigi Ontani finish off O’Neill’s vision. The gallery made a strong showing at the fair, straddling Italy and the rest of Europe as it does.
Defining this new place Italy holds seemed a central idea in the fair, with roundtable discussions about fostering relationships between Italy and the countries of the new Europe. Discussions like this are not featured at Frieze or at American art fairs. The unique and spicy flavour of Italy was apparent at the Bologna Art Fair, from these roundtable discussions to the works planted throughout the city and the artists chosen by Bonito Oliva for his project.
The classically sparse Arte Povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, featured in Bonito Oliva’s selection, was joined by the Modernist sculpture Eliseo Mattiacci, whose sculpture was positioned in the historic Piazza Maggiore. Young Bolognese sound artist Sabrina Torelli had work placed alongside the work of Perino & Vale, who work with the idea of substance in art with pieces made of rusting iron and papier-mâché. Jaume Plensa succeeds in using new technology to present classical ideas with his Tel Aviv Man IV, a metal sculpture resembling a classical bust that is made up of metal letters.
If Bologna is a herald of the year of 2006 in the art world, it will be a year of gravity and grace alongside busy sales.
