04 June 2025 Artforum, "Diana Anselmo" | 16 April 2025 Frieze, "Must-See: The Tears of Karl Lagerfeld" | 16 April 2025 Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, "Mit welcher Haltung kommt man in der Kunstwelt am weitesten, Maurizio Cattelan?" | 09 April 2025 The Berliner, "Consider Listening: An exhibition urging calm amidst outrage" | 02 April 2025 Wallpaper, "Aboard Gio Ponti's colourful Arlecchino train in Milan, a conversation about design with Formafantasma" | 26 March 2025 Frieze, "Diego Marcon’s Films Conjure a Familiar, Grotesque World" | 19 March 2025 Arts Hub, "1500-degree molten steel installation, inspired by Caravaggio, to drip from the ceiling of Mona" | 15 May 2024 Frieze, "Silvia Rosi Gives Voice to Her Parents’ Migration Story" | 30 March 2024 The Korea Times, "Foreigners Everywhere: Artist duo who inspired this year's Venice Biennale lands in Seoul" | 07 February 2024 Artnet News, "Ceramics Are as Contemporary as a Smartphone: Chiara Camoni on Her Tactile Sculptures"
How (Well)
Known Is
Contemporary
Italian
Art
Abroad?
exhibitions
Francesco Simeti in the group show Material Witnesses at the American College of Greece in Athens
Francesco Simeti is taking part in the group exhibition Material Witnesses, curated by Tamara Chalabi, at the American College of Greece in Athens, from June 5 to July 12.Clay and textile—two of humanity’s most ancient and eloquent materials—serve as profound witnesses to human experience. Through impression, weave, and mark, these materials preserve intimate traces of touch and intention, creating permanent records of gesture across time. This exhibition brings together ten contemporary artists from the Mediterranean, Middle East, and their diasporas who harness these materials’ inherent capacity for memory and testimony.
Francesco Simeti’s deeply layered works draw on social, philosophical, and environmental discourses, particularly exploring water’s dual nature through site-specific digital collages and textile installations. Through layered imagery that incorporates historical and contemporary sources, his works map the transformation of natural landscapes, using fabric’s inherent mutability to reflect on ecological shifts and human intervention. Exhibition26 May 2025
Geneva art gallery L'Appartement presents Claudio Massini at June Art Fair in Basel
For the June Art Fair 2025, L’Appartement is pleased to present a solo exhibition of rare paintings made between 2004 and 2010 by the Italian artist Claudio Massini. These historical works showcase his hallmark technique across various media: intimate panel pieces rendered in mixed pigments on marine plywood are shown alongside expansive compositions on double-boiled, triple-washed linen, all painted with his signature palette of ground mineral, vegetable, and organic pigments. Recurring motifs—stars, chalices, garlands, and other symbolic forms—appear throughout the works, often elaborated and repeated in obsessive but never-identical series. Together, they offer a compelling view of Massini’s immersive, meditative visual language.Born in Trieste in 1955, Massini relocated to Naples in the mid-1970s to pursue studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. He now lives and works in Treviso, Italy. His early exposure to both classical traditions and modernist movements laid the groundwork for his innovative approach to painting and mixed media. His art is characterised by rhythmic patterning, intricate surfaces, and a meticulous layering of pigments and materials, resulting in paintings that verge on the sculptural—rich in both visual and tactile depth.
Massini’s style defies easy classification. Describing his approach as “meta-historical,” he conjures a visual realm that fuses timeless iconography with contemporary material processes. Ethereal church spires, blossoms, maritime vessels, vials, amphorae, and antique goblets appear against matte, lacquered backdrops, transforming everyday or folkloric subjects into enchanted forms. His compositions pulse with energy, drawing the viewer into a dialogue between simplicity and complexity, repetition and variation, chaos and order.
Central to Massini’s artistic philosophy is his meditative process. He engraves fine, repetitive lines and curves into each surface with near-trance-like focus, reflecting on universal symbols that transcend time and space. This deep engagement with the physicality of the medium produces works that feel experiential as much as visual—compositions that echo natural cycles and invite quiet contemplation.
Massini’s work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including Cassina Projects, Milan (November 2025); Forma Gallery, Paris (2023); Kunsthalle Budapest, Hungary (2005); MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy (2003); and the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria (2000), among others.
This presentation at the June Art Fair offers a rare opportunity to encounter Massini’s early 21st-century works in a focused context—revealing the continuity of his vision and reaffirming his position as a singular voice in contemporary Italian painting.
(press release) Exhibition14 May 2025
Gian Maria Tosatti and Adji Dieye at the 24th Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala City
Gian Maria Tosatti and Adji Dieye are among the participating artists at the 24th Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala City. The event is curated by Italian curator and Artistic Director of the MAMBO (Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá), Eugenio Viola. "The World Tree" is the title of the Biennial. “The World Tree” is conceived as a polyphonic project that engages with the artistic ecosystem of Guatemala and Mesoamerica, reaffirming art’s ability to bridge distant worlds. In a global context marked by tensions and conflicts, this Biennial stands as a symbol of art’s potential to cultivate understanding, celebrate diversity, and promote unity and inclusion.
A pioneer in the advancement and development of art in Central America, the Paiz Art Biennial is one of
the region’s most significant contemporary art event since 1978, making it the sixth oldest Biennial
in the world and the second oldest in Latin America. The Biennial is a cultural
project of Fundación Paiz, a non-profit organization that, for over forty years, has supported the
development of education and culture in Guatemala, with the conviction that art is an essential tool
for social development.
Additional participants will be announced in the coming months. Exhibition13 May 2025
Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives
Elisabetta Benassi, Rossella Biscotti, Denicolai & Provoost, Tiziana Pers, and Marta Roberti are the Italian artists participating in the group exhibition "Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives" at the EMST Museum in Athens, curated by Katerina Gregos, from May 16, 2025, to February 15, 2026.The exhibition focuses on animal rights and welfare, highlighting the need to recognize and defend the lives of non-human animals in an anthropocentric world that marginalizes, oppresses, and brutalizes them. The show draws inspiration from John Berger’s seminal text of the same name, “Why Look at Animals?” (1980), which explores the human-animal relationship in modernity and how animals have been marginalized in human societies. Featuring over 60 artists from four continents and more than 200 works occupying all floors of the museum, Why Look at Animals? is the largest exhibition ever organized by EMST and the first major international exhibition on non-human animal rights.
In the image: Tiziana Pers, Saut dans le vide (still), 2016, Courtesy of the artist.
interviews
discover more
Valentino Catricalà
Invisible Talents: The Paradox of Italian Art Abroad
Curators
11 June 2025
Vittoria Matarrese
Italian Art, a Global Vocation in a Local System
Curators
11 June 2025
Francesca Guerisoli
Greater Public Support for the Production and Promotion of Artistic Work
Curators
11 June 2025
Chiara Nuzzi
Lack of Connection Between Emerging Artists and the System
artists
public support
discover morePublic support
The Italian Council is a program promoted by Ministero della Cultura, through Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea, with the aim of supporting and enhancing contemporary Italian creativity at the international level. Active since 2017, the program has progressively expanded its areas of intervention, including the production of new works, international promotion, artistic residencies, and editorial projects. Since 2020, it has also supported Italian curators involved in exhibitions abroad, strengthening the dialogue with global cultural institutions. The initiative is structured around three main areas: expansion of public collections, international promotion, and talent development. With funding of up to 80% of project costs, the Italian Council today represents a point of reference for Italian artists, curators, and critics engaged in the contemporary cultural landscape.
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Tax insights
Taxation in the
circulation of artworks
The art market is configured not only as a cultural and professional sphere for artists and curators, but also as a significant economic sector, capable of attracting the interest of investors, collectors, institutions, and professionals. However, the tax and regulatory framework governing its dynamics is heterogeneous at the international level, with significant differences from one legal system to another. In this context, a comparative analysis proves essential to identify opportunities and address the challenges that characterize cross-border operations in the art world.
In an effort to provide a comprehensive overview, several of the most relevant countries — both European and non-European — have been examined in order to understand how different legal and tax systems relate to the circulation, ownership, and transfer of works of art.
Section prepared by Studio Lombard DCA
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legal aspects
discover moreArt Beyond Its Borders
The international circulation of works of art is a constant throughout history. What has changed over time is the value that communities have attributed to these objects, which were long considered solely for their aesthetic merit and as instruments for the display of power—power being a frequent (and interested) patron. Starting in the 19th century, artworks progressively acquired an identity-related value, becoming symbols around which communities recognize and unite themselves. Today, a "cultural asset" is broadly defined as a "testimony having value as a civilization" (Franceschini Commission, 1964). The material object that serves as its physical support must therefore be considered not only in its tangible form, but also as a vehicle for an intangible value—artistic, historical, archaeological, archival, and so on—that determines its cultural and social significance (as well as the need for specific legal protection). By virtue of this, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, while establishing the principle of the free movement of goods within the internal market (Articles 34 and 35), allows Member States to impose restrictions and prohibitions on trade for the purpose of protecting national artistic, historical, or archaeological heritage (Article 36).
Section curated by CBM & Partners
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