We Italians suffer from the victim syndrome

In your experience, who are the contemporary (living) Italian artists who have gained the greatest visibility abroad, and thanks to which factors (e.g., galleries, biennials, exhibitions, curators, etc.)?

I imagine the question refers to artists who emerged starting in the 1990s, after the global success of Arte Povera—which is currently experiencing a renewed season of success and consolidation—and the Transavanguardia, which occupied the global scene for most of the 1980s but has long been on standby, awaiting a possible revival in the coming years. If that's the case, the curricular answer would include: Vanessa Beecroft, Maurizio Cattelan, Francesco Vezzoli, Roberto Cuoghi, Paola Pivi, Monica Bonvicini. Also to be added to this list are foreign artists who chose Italy as a second home; think of the Albanian artist Adrian Paci or, to some extent, the Kosovar artist Sislej Xhafa, who gained visibility while living in Italy between the 1990s and 2000s. Both became established without the backing of powerful curators and/or galleries, or Italian museum exhibitions that could have supported their international growth. Let’s say that it’s the work that speaks first, and therefore the Italian art system (galleries, biennials, exhibitions, curators, etc.) matters only up to a certain point. Since the late 1980s, the world has globalized and therefore expanded. Until then, the game was essentially played between Europe and America, and when exhibitions like the Biennale were organized, they selected from about a hundred artists. Since then, artists from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and so on have entered the scene. Today, for an exhibition—though the number of participants has increased—you still end up with a maximum of 200 artists featured in major events. So, it's both a quantitative issue and a cultural one. Given the themes and trends favored since the 1990s (such as racial, ecological, gender, and multicultural topics), the focus has shifted to countries previously unknown. Italy, after the 1980s, is no longer among them—not because it lacks talented artists, but because, generally speaking, it has little to offer on these themes. This shift was also influenced by a generational change with different interests. 

Curators like Harald Szeemann, Jan Hoet, Jean-Christophe Ammann, Rudi Fuchs, or magazine editors like Catherine Millet—and many others of their generation—were people who had partly studied in Italy, where art history education was mainly focused on the past, making a stay in Italy almost a requirement. Scholarships to stay in our country, considered the home of art, were very common. In fact, almost all of that generation also speak our language. I clearly remember what the German gallerist Paul Maenz—one of the most powerful at the time—told me in Italian in 1981: “We cannot avoid coming to Italy to see what artists are doing, because Italy is the country of art.” For later curators, it was no longer necessary to have studied art or art history. For example, Hans Ulrich Obrist, one of the most influential curators from the 1990s onward, studied economics; Nicolas Bourriaud studied journalism. So the reference points for reading art are different, and from this different perspective, Italy appears of little interest to them. The climate has changed. To prove this, we can note that although the artists mentioned above have very respectable international resumes and have been invited to various Italian and foreign biennials and international solo and group shows, none of them has ever been invited to participate in documenta Kassel, the event widely considered the most important art exhibition in the world.

The last time Italy captured large-scale international attention in contemporary art was in the 1980s with the Transavanguardia. This movement was not an isolated or calculated phenomenon, as many in Italy still believe, but part of a broader epochal change known as Postmodernism, in which Italy played a central role—including architecture, design, fashion, and cinema (with Palme d'Or wins and two Oscars for Tornatore and Salvatores), and even soccer with a World Cup victory. Unless we start from this context, we can’t understand why Italian contemporary art today is on the margins of a global revolution. The reality is that the production of Italian artists is primarily interesting to us Italians. Let me explain by citing a few Italian and foreign contexts in which I participated. I was, for example, with Chiara Bertola—curator of the Furla Prize for 15 years—where the finalist young artists were noticed by critics, curators, artists, and museum directors, both Italian and foreign. From this experience, it became clear that the artists most liked by Italians were those least liked by foreigners. And even when foreigners showed interest, it was obviously circumstantial. Indeed, critics, curators, and museum directors almost never invited any of the examined artists. Not only did they not invite them, but no cultural ties were established—these artists simply did not enter their artistic and cultural radar.

Another example is my participation in the Pinchuk Prize in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2014. It's an international award where 14 artists are selected from a thousand submissions for a group show held during the Venice Biennale, plus a solo show for the winner. The jury includes critics and curators from all over the world. I was the only Italian and felt obligated to ensure that at least one Italian artist made it into the 14 finalists. After considerable struggle, I succeeded—but not for the work itself, which, although interesting, was not considered so by the other jurors. Nor were they interested in any of the other Italian artists being considered. Instead, I leveraged the artist’s career, noting that they had previously been selected by Massimiliano Gioni for the Venice Biennale and by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev for documenta Kassel—implying that if they weren’t accepted, it would be an offense not to me, but to Gioni and Bakargiev. Had I not been there, no Italian would have made it through. The reality is that we Italians are no longer considered abroad. And when we are, a target is immediately drawn on the selected artist—by Italians themselves, who are incredibly skilled at harming their own. This does not help because foreigners first look at what we say about our artists. Therefore, if we already speak badly of them—or ignore them entirely—they absorb this and act accordingly. This is also evident in internationally visible Italian art magazines such as Flash Art International and Mousse, which don’t speak badly or well about our artists; they simply almost never cover them. I’m not saying they are obligated to do so, but the absence of Italian artists in these globally read publications leads international readers to assume there simply are no notable Italian artists. Not to mention the Venice Art Biennale, where the Italian Pavilion is practically invisible. Until a few editions ago, the stubborn insistence on presenting pavilions packed with too many artists ended up disorienting foreign visitors, who, not coincidentally, usually present just one or two artists in their own pavilions. This is because the “relevant” art world attends mainly during opening week and ends up seeing everything in a rush. Having a maximum of two or three artists helps focus attention. Overcrowding signals a lack of curatorial choice on our part. In fact, if you ask ten Italian curators to name ten emerging artists, only one or two will appear on multiple lists—the remaining eight will be different for each person. So when a foreigner consults several people and each gives different names, they end up confused and conclude that there are no noteworthy artists. There’s also another issue regarding the Biennale: our country does not assert itself in making requests to the director. This does not mean insisting that Italian artists must be invited, but that they should at least be considered and evaluated, and then a decision made whether to include them. For example, when Okwui Enwezor was appointed as director in 2015—a very skilled curator—he didn’t visit a single Italian artist’s studio. Instead, he selected two artists from documents: Fabio Mauri and Pino Pascali, both deceased and long since historicized. The third was Monica Bonvicini, who had lived between Berlin and the U.S. for over 30 years, where she built her entire career, and who was already an established artist at the time. If Enwezor acted this way, it was because he was convinced that there were no interesting artists in Italy—a belief widely shared in his international circle. And things have not changed today, in 2024. Adriano Pedrosa, director of the current Venice Biennale, has invited only two young Italian female artists—Giulia Andreani and Alessandra Ferrini—alongside two deceased artists, Filippo De Pisis and Nedda Guidi. Ironically, Anna Maria Maiolino, of Italian origin, is perceived as Brazilian, and even more tellingly, the duo Claire Fontaine (Fulvia Carnevale and James Thornhill), whose work gives the exhibition its title Stranieri Ovunque (Foreigners Everywhere), are not perceived as Italian—at least not entirely.

As for the Italian Pavilion at the 2015 Biennale (but this could apply to any edition, including the recent invitation to Massimo Bartolini), as soon as the news came out, the show—still non-existent—was subjected to preemptive criticism. But more seriously, I repeat, was the fact that neither the Biennale director (Enwezor, and now Pedrosa) felt obligated, even for appearances’ sake, to visit any Italian artist studios before deciding whether to invite anyone. This was possible because no one—neither then-president Baratta nor the current (until 2024) president Roberto Cicutto, nor the Italian press, whether specialized or general—held them accountable. No one asked: “Excuse me, why don’t you go visit the studios of Italian artists and then decide if there are any worth inviting, considering we’ve handed you the most prestigious art biennial in the world, with a budget of around 20 million euros?” I pointed this out at the time, but it fell on deaf ears. Some magazines even interviewed me about the Italian Pavilion as soon as the curator and artists were announced. I replied that I had nothing to say because the pavilion would open the following year, and I couldn’t comment on a show that didn’t yet exist. However, I took the opportunity to share my concerns about the director’s lack of engagement—remarks that were never published, as if this wasn’t the real issue. This would never have happened at Documenta, which Enwezor curated in 2002 (one of the best editions ever), because Germany would have held him accountable. And indeed, no one there would ever dream of excluding German artists from Documenta.

Which contemporary Italian artists, in your opinion, have not yet achieved adequate visibility despite their artistic value, and what are the causes of this lack of recognition?

Carla Accardi, Luigi Ontani, Alberto Garutti, Ugo La Pietra—if we think of the historic figures. If we consider artists from the 1990s onward, I would say Stefano Arienti, Pietro Roccasalva, Vedovamazzei, Luisa Lambri, and others.

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 art scene?

Perhaps I put everything in the first answer: the issue of the system is largely a false problem because the movements that became internationally established, like Arte Povera and Transavanguardia, emerged when the Italian art system was almost nonexistent and, what little there was, was scarcely structured. The aforementioned movements, Arte Povera and Transavanguardia, emerged in periods when there were fewer galleries compared to today, not to mention museums and the like. Blaming the system, as many do, is a naïveté that prevents us from questioning the work that still needs to be done. One could say that we Italians suffer from a "victim syndrome" that pushes us to always blame others when something goes wrong, as is the case with museums, which have always been accused of "esterofilia" (preference for foreign artists). To refute all this, I would like to bring up data prepared by AMACI (Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums) in 2012, an analysis done precisely to dispel these accusations. 

A count was made from 2003, the year AMACI was founded, to 2012, showing that, in group exhibitions, the presence of Italian artists was 183 compared to 333 foreigners. For solo exhibitions, the data was 621 monographs for Italian artists and 321 for foreigners. Therefore, comparing Italy and the rest of the world, the presence of Italian artists in Italian museums was clearly superior, even though the perception by most was (and still is) that they were little or not at all represented. Now, this perception problem indicates that if 70% of exhibitions are of Italian artists and 30% are foreigners, but the perception is the opposite, it means that that 70% does not have an impact. The work of Italians is therefore perceived as less interesting compared to the remaining 30% of foreigners. In short, we should reflect more on the work (and when I say work, I do not only mean artworks but the work in all sectors) rather than always blaming others. Indeed, the problem is not that there are not enough players in the art system, but that they are not incisive enough and are not considered. Museums, curators, galleries, and Italian critics heard outside Italy are very few, and when they are, they often do not take care of or do little to support Italian artists. Think of the exhibition “Younger than Jesus,” curated in 2009 by the then director of the New Museum Lauren Cornell and associate curator Massimiliano Gioni, now director of the same museum, dedicated to artists under 33 years old. How many Italians do you think were in a show counting over 50 artists? Zero. Moreover, that show was accompanied by a publication which also lists 500 artists visited or considered, among which only 2 were Italian. 

This supports what I said before: if Italian art does not exist for us, let alone for others. This also happens with galleries. If we look at the Italian artists present in our most important galleries, we see that almost none of the represented artists have true international consideration. Consequently, even if their gallerists do their duty by proposing them to institutions, galleries, critics, and foreign curators, they find little interest on the other side, unlike what happened for Italian galleries until part of the 1980s. The 1980s constitute a watershed that partly influenced the current situation in which contemporary Italian art finds itself today. For the first time in the history of Italian art, a break between generations occurred. If one looks at the exhibitions of those years, it is clear that with the artists of Transavanguardia, the close relationship that existed until then between artists was interrupted. In fact, the Transavanguardia artists exhibited only with already established artists, both Italian and foreign, and not with younger ones, effectively stopping that necessary dialogue through which the previous generation passes the baton to the next. This and more is also visible in the collections of Italian modern and contemporary art museums, where we do not find collections that narrate the history of Italian art and its continuity up to today. For example, if we go to European or American museums, we find represented, in a national and international historical line, all generations up to the most recent, so that when one visits the museums, one gets an idea of the art history and the nation, in relation both to itself and the rest of the world. This does not happen in Italy; everything is more sporadic. Therefore, foreigners, not finding museum continuity that also guarantees the quality of works and artists represented, end up concluding that it does not exist.