In 2024, Arte Fiera will celebrate its 50^th birthday: something that no other Italian art fair has achieved and that only two other fairs in Europe have exceeded. It all began back in 1974, when BolognaFiere decided to present (as part of what was then called the Trade Fair) a small section devoted to modern and contemporary art. A brilliant idea and an immediate success. The first edition had only ten galleries; a year later, there were 200.

 1974-2024: an important anniversary that Arte Fiera will celebrate not only by looking back, but also by thinking about its future.

On the one hand, the fair will celebrate its origins: the Public Program will reconsider the personalities and events linked to its early editions and, in general, to Bologna’s cultural climate in the ’70s, when the city was at the cutting edge in visual art as well as in architecture and design. On the other, in addition to offering the finest modern and contemporary Italian art, Arte Fiera will point out new trends, once again presenting foreign galleries, the latest in performance art, and asking contemporary artists to create new works.

Applications, new path, prestigious collaborations

Arte Fiera is happy to inform you that the application forms for the 2024 edition are now online. In addition to reviewing the fair’s first 50 years, the next edition picks up the thread of the highly successful 2023 edition, hailed by the press as a rebirth and welcomed by collectors, who returned in pre-pandemic numbers. The location, the same as in the previous edition (Halls 25 and 26, two of the Bologna Fair District’s most elegant spaces, traditionally associated with the fair), and its winning collaborations (starting with the one between Simone Menegoi as Artistic Director and Enea Righi, renowned manager and collector, as Managing Director) have been confirmed. Together, Menegoi and Righi will merge an ambitious curatorial program with careful attention to all organizational aspects, including display design, catering, visitor reception, and the public program dedicated to collectors.

 Sections and curators

 The Main Section of Arte Fiera, divided as always into post-war and contemporary art, will again be accompanied by three curated, invitation-only sections: Photography and moving images, Pittura XXI, and Multiples, presenting works published in edition, ranging from artist books to design.

Pittura XXI will again be curated by Davide Ferri, critic and independent curator, while Photography and moving images is entrusted for the second time to Giangavino Pazzola, curator of di Camera - Centro italiano per la fotografia (Turin). Multiples will have a new curator: critic and art historian Alberto Salvadori.

In addition to the curated sections, there will be Percorso: not really a section, but, as the name implies, an itinerary that thematically links some of the stands in the Main Section. Percorso’s theme will be a universal language that unites artists of different generations and styles: drawing.

Arte Fiera 2024: the past, present, and future of a unique fair.