From 2 to 4 February inclusive, the programme of Marca Corona @ Art City Bologna developed along lines among architecture, design and art , with a strong appeal:
- to the innovations of our time, such as Artificial Intelligence
- to new proposals by under 35 artists
- to the relationship amidst culture, the business system and society, represented here by the choral works of Stefano Arienti, master of Arte Povera and international Transavanguardia.
Many emotions were triggered during the various days and involved the many participants of the events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Let’s go together to discover this path, which combines the beauty and surprise of art in all its forms with the encounter, dialogue and experience of an extraordinary location such as the Theatre San Leonardo in Via San Vitale 63 in Bologna.
Art, architecture and artificial intelligence take centre stage during day 1 at Art City 2024
Our story of Art City 2024 Bologna begins with day 1 on Friday 2 February and the conference “Arte, architettura e intelligenza artificiale, frontiere e limiti della rivoluzione digitale in atto – Art, Architecture and Artificial Intelligence, frontiers and limits of the ongoing digital revolution”.
In collaboration with the Association of Architects of Bologna, the event underlined the extent and the bursting power of the “AI revolution” on various types of sectors, not least those of architecture and art.
Starting from the focus on current affairs and the near future, the meeting was an in-depth exploration of the transformation role that AI is playing and will play in shaping artistic, architectural and design contexts, highlighting the possibility that new forms of creativity and the intersection of technology and innovation may arise from these dynamics.
A reflection was also made on the applications of AI in disciplines related to art and architecture, with analysis of the various ethical, social and economic consequences that may arise from its use.
Among the speakers at this seminar for professionals and persons concerned:
- Luca Molinari – architect, critic and curator
- Stefano Arienti – international artist
- Walter Nicolino – professor at the Department of Architecture and Design of the Polytechnic University of Turin and at the Institute of Applied Art and Design (IAAD), founder of WNA | Walter Nicolino Architects
- Mario Coppola – architect and lecturer in Architectural and Urban Design at the Federico II University of Naples
- Valerio Barberis – architect and town planning councillor of the Municipality of Prato
- Giulia De Appolonia – architect
Mediators and coordinators of the day:
- Fabrizio Storchi, Marca Corona marketing director
- Marco Filippucci, President of the Architect Association of Bologna
Next up, a group visit to Arte Fiera, while waiting for the finissage of the “Opera Aperta” (Open Work) exhibition and the “Marca Corona Prize 2024” award soiree for young artists under 35.
Art City Bologna 2024: new languages and new artistic influences with the contest for young talents
In the year in which Arte Fiera – the famous trade exhibition that focuses on the best of modern and contemporary art worldwide – celebrates its 50th anniversary, at Art City Bologna 2024 new languages and new artistic influences are being created thanks to initiatives that promote the talent of the next generation of artists, such as the Marca Corona Prize 2024.
The theme of the context “Open Work: between contingency and wonder” picks up on the link introduced by Stefano Arienti in the exhibition “Open Work”, where the propulsive impetus of participatory art gives rise to a creation that is a dialogue between the most common materials and, at first glance, unconnected to the artistic world as we often understand it.
Even in the thinking of Umberto Eco, “art lives in the public’s breath” and it is in this way that – guided by contingency – apparently ‘simple’ works become charged with wonder, in a continuous conversation with those who enjoy them. The concept of “Open Work” lies precisely in this exchange.
During the evening of 2 February, Art City Bologna 2024 therefore saw the new instances of the artistic universe come to the fore, with live dance performances and the awarding of the winner of the call for young artists Camilla Alberti, who described her work “The alliance between inhabitants and builders” as follows
“I am writing this proposal while I am in Graz, Austria, studying… Two distinct organisms allied in the creation of a more complex entity based on balance and exchange.
… I then decided to build an image that followed this logic of the multiple body…
To build the image, I followed the design method of the tile decoration, namely making an image that was both modular and could be joined to other products featuring the same decoration.
… I thought of using the blue colour sampled by the Marca Corona logo for the internal pattern to trace – within sketched lines – the complex organic-machinery system that year after year has allowed and continues to allow the factory to grow.
Special mentions for the other finalists in the context:
- Alessandro D’aquila with the work “Tavole ottometriche poetiche – Poetic eye charts”
- Lorenza Iacobini with the “Grotesque Wireframe” project
The jury of the contest was formed by outstanding professionals and personalities from the world of visual arts, such as:
- Stefano Arienti – artist, president of the jury
- Maria Vittoria Baravelli curator
- Stefania Spaggiari – director of the Fiorano museum of ceramics
- Luca Molinari – architect
- Federico Palumbo – Osservatorio Futura
- Giovanni Scarzella – collector
- Sara Zambon – CEO R&P Contemporary Art
- Luca Fiandri Marca Corona R&D Manager
- Mariachiara Russo Marca Corona Product Manager
The Marca Corona Prize has always aimed to promote emerging art and the affirmation of young talents, through the promotion of original projects aiming at telling stories and arousing emotions.
In this second edition of the initiative, the close link with the artistic universe and the concrete determination for a mutual collaboration is again confirmed, with the aim of developing new mutual alliances between art and the corporate world.
The winner Camilla Alberti receives the cash award, the artist’s residency at Ceramiche Marca Corona with the realisation of the submitted work on ceramic support and the entry of merit into the collective of artists who actively cooperate with the company, inaugurating new stylistic periods and developing unprecedented creativity installations through material and colour.
Art City White Night 2024 becomes "Open Work" with Stefano Arienti's exhibition for Marca Corona per l'Arte
In the location of the Theatre San Leonardo, the exhibition “Opera Aperta” by Stefano Arienti has found an exclusive location to meet the large public that crowded in Bologna during Art City White Night 2024 and the following Sunday of Art City Bologna 2024.
And so the days of 3 and 4 February were enlivened with amazement by the canvases of this international artist, known for his unique technique for creating a narrative path of experimentation with seemingly disjointed materials and fields.
Stefano Arienti is one of the leading exponents of Arte Povera and Transavanguardia, with works hosted in major Italian and foreign museums and art institutions, including the MAXXI Museum in Rome, the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
With this exhibition – curated by Maria Vittoria Baravelli– the artist shared the unprecedented path of his last year of artistic production, marked by an even greater focus on the community and the relationship between culture and the business system.
In this sense, “Opera Aperta” represents a choral dialogue that tells the long history of excellence, tradition and values that surrounds the community around Marca Corona.
The works are in fact the result of conversations, anecdotes and encounters with the company’s employees, during which the artist took inspiration to unite and transmit the different “distant but close” dimensions of human perception to the outside world.
Thus we find on large dust canvas works such as Ceramiche in Giardino, Carrello elevatore, Ruspa (Ceramics in the garden, Fork lift, Scraper), united in the exhibition at Theatre San Leonardo with a selection of historical objects that tell the story of the evolution of Sassuolo’s ceramic district, part of the cultural heritage housed in Galleria Marca Corona.
Remembering once again the words of Umberto Eco – to whom the “Opera Aperta” exhibition is a clear homage:
Just as a book exists if someone reads it, a work of art is such – or rather begins to be such – when someone looks at it, desires it or, like a rare seashell found on the beach, considers it something precious, mysterious and magical.
Thanks to Art City White Night 2024 and Art City Bologna 2024, the work-culture takes shape through the emotions of those who experience and interpret it, with a direct exchange between subject, exhibition narrative and artistic experimentation.
At a time when art is constantly striving towards the future, Stefano Arienti surprised the visitors of the Art City Bologna 2024 weekend with his masterful ability to elevate fragments of past and present that lead back to the complexity of memory and identity.
His work always invites the observer to find the extraordinary in the ordinary and to explore seemingly distant rather interconnected worlds.
