Few Italian Artists Recognized Abroad: A Public Direction Is Needed

In your experience, which contemporary Italian artists (still living) have achieved greater visibility abroad, and thanks to what factors (e.g., galleries, biennials, exhibitions, curators, etc.)?
There are few living Italian artists who enjoy significant international recognition. The number is striking, especially when compared to other European countries. For this comparison, the United States and the United Kingdom should be excluded — as they are more deeply rooted in contemporary culture, with investments and networks that offer greater opportunities, alongside a more powerful collector base — whereas France and Germany should represent comparable countries. Instead, a disparity with Italy is always noticeable in terms of artist visibility, the number of participants in major biennials and solo exhibitions at international museums, as well as auction results. Today, unlike a few years ago, there is also a heightened international sensitivity toward new geographies — artists from Asia, Latin America, Africa — who receive attention that was previously lacking, and this obviously broadens the competition even further.

I believe the more recognized Italian artists are so deservedly, first and foremost because of their abilities. Certainly, the trust of curators and industry professionals who have promoted and presented them over the years has played a key role in allowing them to express themselves at their best. Opportunities for artists arise through the circulation of their work and ideas: constant engagement with the public is fundamental to everything.

In your opinion, which contemporary Italian artists have not yet achieved adequate visibility relative to their artistic value, and what are the causes of this lack of recognition?
In my view, there are three generational groups of artists in Italy facing different challenges: first, the young artists, who, despite consistently struggling to find visibility opportunities, can rely on some grants, residencies, the interest of emerging galleries, or alternative and experimental spaces, with the limitation that they rarely reach an international audience. 

Then there are the mid-career artists, who perhaps enjoyed much success in the 2000s but now find themselves in a disadvantaged position, excluded from grants, less favored by museums, and struggling to re-enter foreign gallery programs, despite often still having much to say. Although recently some Italian institutions have shown increased interest in these artists and are organizing dedicated exhibitions.

Much more intense, however, is the work done in our country in recent years on the pioneers — particularly women — with significant investment in research by curators and a growing focus in museum and gallery programs aimed at their rediscovery and reevaluation.

In your experience, what are the stages and elements that favor the international career of a contemporary Italian artist? And where is the Italian system lacking in supporting Italian contemporary art on the international stage?
I believe several factors contribute to this limitation, starting, if we want to go to the roots of this issue, from a system in our country that neither promotes nor invests sufficiently in contemporary culture. This limits the steady and active development of new spectators and enthusiasts and confines contemporaneity within a niche audience made up only of those who already have the tools to engage with certain themes and languages. Beyond visitors, who we know are fundamental to the growth of art, the Italian system itself is not dynamic. Public academies, even in their moments of excellence, do not favor international exchanges because they rarely allow involvement of foreign professors, artists, and curators who could promote knowledge exchange. At the ministerial level, there are no residency programs that can connect artists with foreign curators and museums, instead of merely giving them spaces to produce. Some virtuous private realities have activated initiatives in this regard, creating international collaboration projects and residencies for curators and researchers who can move around Italy. Furthermore, there are many Italian collectors who believe in and commit to supporting Italian art but obviously they are not enough. Investments in Italian artists, young and not, should be made with targeted strategies not only to support the artists themselves but also the curators and galleries that can promote them. Private galleries in Italy, which have the fundamental role of supporting artists through the market, due to penalizing tax laws, must favor presenting their most solid and “commercial” artists at fairs, undermining the ideal balance of visibility between emerging and established artists. If galleries had the possibility to “take risks” with innovative proposals, they could do much more for Italian art, both on a market level and on a research level (since fairs are also places where curators from around the world come to discover), but they would need to be supported with new fiscal policies.

Young curators in Italy have few opportunities and consequently their scouting role is undervalued. We lack recognition of an institutional hierarchy that includes all the specific roles of people and institutions, from discovery, to research, to experimentation, to production, to mediation, to communication. Just think of the German institutional system: there are Kunstverein, Kunsthalle, Kunstzentrum, Kunsthaus, Kunstmuseum — all with different but coordinated missions and purposes. To give another example, in countries like France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany, and England, there are public entities solely committed to promoting their artists internationally. (Incidentally, we Italian curators benefit from them when we need economic resources for our exhibitions with artists from those countries). But to whom does a curator of a museum or art space abroad turn if they want to present an Italian artist?

During my three-year term as director of the Quadriennale di Roma, an institution dedicated to promoting and supporting Italian art, I committed myself with great intensity precisely on this front: creating a fund for museums and foreign spaces exhibiting Italian artists, which we called “Q-International,” through which we financed numerous museum and non-museum spaces. For training and exchange among young people, we launched a workshop project, which I curated together with Stefano Collicelli Cagol, carried out throughout Italy, to which we invited some of the most active international curators (now directors of prestigious museums). The exhibition “Quadriennale FUORI” absorbed a lot from these opportunities for meetings, mapping, and research and made us aware both of the potential of young people in our country and of the necessity to reinterpret Italian art in a new way, to bring back to public attention fundamental figures among the pioneers and mid-career artists.