Little investment is made to attract the foreign art system to Italy

In your experience, which contemporary Italian artists (living) have achieved greater visibility abroad and thanks to which factors (e.g., galleries, biennials, exhibitions, curators, etc.)?
Among the generations born between the 1960s and early 1980s, certainly some of the best-known and most visible abroad are Yuri Ancarani, Rosa Barba, Vanessa Beecroft, Rossella Biscotti, Monica Bonvicini, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Maurizio Cattelan, Roberto Cuoghi, Chiara Fumai, Francesco Jodice, Armin Linke, Eva Marisaldi, Alessandro Pessoli, Paola Pivi, Marinella Senatore, Francesco Vezzoli. For most of them, participation in the most prestigious art events such as the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Manifesta, and other important non-European biennials (São Paulo in Brazil, Gwangju, Lyon, to name a few) has represented unparalleled global visibility among professionals, collectors, and a broader public interested in contemporary culture expressions. Such public recognition must then be followed by long-term, coordinated work together with galleries and curators/museum directors. In particular, having their works present at national and international art fairs through galleries has brought them closer to a broader collecting audience, ensuring continuity over time. The growing phenomenon of art fairs over the last two decades has changed the art system and collectors’ approach to artists’ works.

In this scenario, the initial and formative role of exhibitions (also in independent spaces) has been fundamental to making artists known and allowing them to showcase their research over time rather than occasionally. In this perspective, the work of curators and art critics through writing in newspapers and catalogs significantly contributes to their visibility and notoriety. Another reality that contributes to artists’ visibility at the start of their careers is prizes for young artists, a phenomenon that has grown in the last decade also thanks to the media contribution of social networks.

Other important artists with significant international visibility include Olivo Barbieri, Massimo Bartolini, Botto & Bruno, Chiara Camoni, Alberto Garutti, Paolo Icaro, Mimmo Jodice, Masbedo, Luca Vitone… and certainly others I am forgetting. Italy has very talented artists who, as you rightly pointed out, suffer from a lack of institutional support, although the creation of the Italian Council prize by the Ministry of Culture (MiC) has given an important boost to state artistic policies, presenting Italian artists’ projects abroad and creating new synergies, also supporting artistic research.

Regarding Italian artists’ presence at high-profile international events, many other very skilled artists have in the past participated in the Venice Biennale (and beyond) and deserve greater recognition abroad. The decline in visibility of their work over time can be attributed to several factors, including not being represented by a solid and dynamic gallery, choosing to remain mostly in Italy, or other more personal reasons. Moreover, I have unfortunately observed over the years that several female artists recognized by the Venice Biennale have experienced a slowdown in their careers shortly after maternity. I have not mentioned the living artists of Arte Povera and Transavanguardia above, who are very well known internationally and key names in our 20th-century art history.

In your opinion, which contemporary Italian artists have not yet achieved adequate visibility despite their artistic value, and what are the causes of this lack of recognition?
Unfortunately, there are many, just think of the conceptual artists such as Giuseppe Chiari, Gino De Dominicis, Ugo La Pietra, Luca Maria Patella, Franco Vaccari, or the artists of Visual Poetry (like Emilio Isgrò and others), who made fundamental contributions in the 1960s-70s to international research on the relationship between word and visual language. Italy has not built over past decades a strong and continuous institutional network with programs to promote and represent our best contemporary expressions. Even the Italian Cultural Institutes suffer from poor coordination in their activities and common enhancement efforts: each institute seems to operate individually with uncoordinated programming, while other European countries have long developed common and coherent programs to promote their artists abroad (think of the Goethe Institut, the British Council, the Académie de France, the Polish Institute, the American Academy, etc.). Having collaborated with the Polish Institute in Rome on several projects, I witnessed their work, which follows a general coordination by the Ministry of Culture and also applies to other entities — for example, study trips and deepening visits aimed at curators, art critics, museum directors to experience Polish contemporary art live and create collaborations; or partial funding for high-profile exhibition projects abroad.

In your experience, what are the steps and elements that favor the international career of a contemporary Italian artist? Where is the Italian system lacking in supporting Italian contemporary art on the international art scene?
Regarding the Italian system, I have partially answered with the foreign examples above, which are missing in our country. Especially the activation by our institutions of residencies and study trips for foreign curators/art critics/museum directors, invited to Italy to visit museums, artists’ studios, foundations, galleries, and get closer to Italian art, could be effective in spreading knowledge of our artists among foreign operators who then organize exhibitions abroad. It is rare to hear of such actions taken in our country to give greater visibility to our artists. Meetings with sector personalities living and working abroad greatly support their careers outside national borders. When I talk about living contemporary Italian artists to foreign curators, many admit a poor knowledge, often due to the low presence of our artists in exhibitions and events abroad: it happens (and it’s not the only example) that an artist of the caliber of Maria Lai was almost unknown abroad before the 2017 Venice Biennale and Documenta consecrated her publicly. I believe this is the weakest point: little investment to attract the foreign art system here, instead of looking outward and waiting for the individual artist or gallery to break the silence.

An important innovation that will have significant effects on the research and work of our artists is the recent activation (starting from the 2024-2025 academic year) of research doctorates for the AFAM sector by the Ministry of University and Research with PNRR funds. Finally, they will be able to do practice-based doctorates specific for Fine Arts Academies and ISIA, which, unlike the more theoretical university doctorates, will combine laboratory research on visual languages and materials with theoretical study. A long-awaited milestone, allowing our artist-doctoral students to do research and training at the same level as their European peers.