Milano Art Week

Not just an art fair but a producer and promoter of culture. The twenty-sixth edition of miart—the international fair of modern and contemporary art organized by Fiera Milano and directed by Nicola Ricciardi (April 1–3, 2022, with a VIP preview on March 31)—will extend beyond the traditional boundaries of fieramilanocity_MiCo exhibition center to contaminate and spread into the streets of Milan thanks to a series of collaborations with partners and institutions from the world of music, dance, and theatre.

One of the most significant of these initiatives is OUTPUT, an unprecedented performance series in the public space curated by Davide Giannella and featuring the visual artist Riccardo Benassi and the choreographer Michele Rizzo. Developed in collaboration with the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Milan and realized thanks to the fundamental support of the Marcelo Burlon Foundation, OUTPUT expands the space of the art fair by bringing artistic practices into the urban sphere and enabling live participation within the social fabric.

The performance series will begin on Friday, April 1, at 6pm, when Michele Rizzo will launch REST, a work investigating that moment of recovery of energies, key to the reiteration of the ecstatic ritual of the party. At 7pm Riccardo Benassi’s Dancefloorensick will follow, projecting a sequence of video-essays that make up a single flow of texts, images, and sounds, like a collection of notes that aspires to poetry. Finally, at 8pm, Michele Rizzo will return with HIGHER xt., a performance that examines dance in nightclubs seen as sharing spaces in which to explore one’s identity, offering dancers-performers a space for personal expression and exchange with each other.

This ideal motion from inside the halls of miart towards the streets of Milan is counterbalanced by a project aimed at bringing the city inside the fair. With City, I listen to your heart the photographer Giovanna Silva will take over all the screens at the entrance of miart projecting over 500 photographs that she took around Milan, capturing glimpses of its architecture and exploring the lesser-known traits of its public and private institutions: from Teatro Alla Scala to Fondazione Prada, from the garden of Triennale Milano to the corridors of the Natural History Museum.

In addition to these initiatives, there are also many planned in the context of the new edition of the popular Milano Art Week (March 28–April 3)—developed in collaboration with the City of Milan’s Office for Culture—that celebrates the city’s main public museums and private foundations. Opening during the fair are all the main exhibitions of the season, including Useless Bodies? by Elmgreen & Dragset at Fondazione Prada, Quando La Paura Mangia L’anima by Artur Zmijewski at PAC - Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Yuli Yamagata at Ordet and Sunshine State by Steve McQueen at Pirelli HangarBicocca. Maurizio Cattelan will install one of his work inside Milan’s Monumental Cemetery; ArtLine will come alive with works by Mario Airò, Alfredo Jaar and Kiki Smith, and it will also be possible to visit exhibitions across the city that are already open, such as the large group show Tiziano e l’immagine della donna nel Cinquecento veneziano at Palazzo Reale, Anicka Yi Metaspore at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Role Play Osservatorio - Fondazione Prada, Marcello Maloberti. Martellate at Triennale Milano, Miriam Cahn at Fondazione ICA and Pamela Diamante’s Stato di flusso at Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro.

All the information and the complete calendar of initiatives of the Milano Art Week will be visible on miart’s digital platform as well as on the website of the Milan’s Office for Culture.