The 2019 edition of miart takes place April 5–7 at Fiera Milano City. Under the leadership of director Alessandro Rabottini, the fair continues to expand its focus on not just contemporary art, but modern works and limited-edition design and objects. With a range of participating galleries and sections like Generations, Decades, and Emergent, past and present will collide, alongside art and design.
WHITEWALLER: In 2018, you said that one of the fair’s goals is to deepen the chances of dialogue between contemporary art, modern art, and limited-edition design. What has been your focus for 2019?
ALESSANDRO RABOTTINI: During the past few editions of miart, my curatorial team and I focused on expanding the chronological offering of artworks, and we are now in the position to present artistic practices from the very beginning of the last century to the most recent generations. These different narratives may require specific contexts, like the curated sections Decades and Emergent, respectively. However, they can also find a sort of common ground, as the curated section Generations proves well, where works by artists from different generations are brought together in unexpected dialogues.
The exploration of the past and the present of art history is still a master framework for us, and it generates such vast and challenging opportunities that it cannot be completed in just one edition. So in 2019 we will continue to operate in this direction, and we will keep seeing, from galleries and collectors, a growing interest in finding new ways to put history and the present next to each other.
WW: Is there a thematic section or special project program this year that you’re excited about?
AR: Our program of talks will be particularly rich and timely this year. For the fourth consecutive year, we have organized it in collaboration with In Between Art Film, the company founded by Beatrice Bulgari to support artists’ films and experimental works, and, like every year, it will happen within a specific thematic framework, with the aim of delivering a proper symposium.
Under the title “The Common Good,” more than 40 international artists, curators, collectors, designers, museum directors, and thinkers will be invited to discuss the current meanings of this concept, its production, and the need to protect it. Over three days of panels and conversations, we will ask ourselves how contemporary art, modern art, and design can deal with the current social, economic, and environmental changes.
WW: Last year the fair saw a growth in limited-edition design gallery representation. What kind of growth in terms of types of galleries are you expecting for 2019?
AR: The Object section at miart 2019 will see galleries such as Marc Heiremans from Antwerp, Frank Landau from Frankfurt, and Taste Contemporary from Geneva participating for the first time together with international exhibitors that have chosen miart for many years now to showcase their vision of design as a collectable art form. And I am thinking of galleries like Feldt from Copenhagen; Elisabetta Cipriani from London; and Luisa Delle Piane, Erastudio Apartment-Gallery, and Dimoregallery, all from Milan.
WW: Who are some of the first-time galleries visitors should keep an eye out for?
AR: I am excited to welcome for the first time at miart high-profile galleries such as Marian Goodman, Hauser & Wirth, Thaddaeus Ropac, and Tucci Russo, together with international galleries like Cabinet, Herald St, Corvi-Mora, and The Sunday Painter, whose programs are extremely experimental and sophisticated. I believe that this diversity of positions will enrich the experience of our visitors and reflects the ambition of the fair to be a place where the works of established artists can be appreciated together with newer practices.
