Highlights From Miart 2024, Milan’s Modern And Contemporary Art Fair

The 28th annual edition of the international art fair Miart last week kicked off a month of art, architecture, design and fashion in Italy’s most fashionable city. With 180 galleries from 28 countries showing more than 1,000 artworks, Milan’s international fair has a well-deserved reputation for carefully selected galleries. The fair has made a stellar effort to stand out among the hundreds of annual art fairs that include mammoth fairs like Frieze and Art Basel by focusing on Italian galleries and by taking the unusual decision to have the emerging galleries, rather than the established blue chip galleries, right at the front of the fair.

The galleries at Miart are vetted by Nicola Ricciardi, the fair director and a panel of judges who choose around half of the applicants. While the focus is on Italy, this year they’ve also accepted a good range of international galleries including Helena Anrather (New York), Galerie Buchholz (Cologne, Berlin), Emanuela Campoli (Paris, Milan), Fabienne Levy (Lausanne, Geneva), Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro), Greengrassi (London) and Galerie Neu (Berlin).

For foreign visitors, Miart offers the chance to see the great Italian art galleries that make up half of the fair, plus a wide range of art events around the city. A sensational retrospective show at the stunning Rem Koolhaas designed Fondazione Prada features 49 mostly sculptural works by Pino Pascali, who created so much before dying at age 32 in a motorcycle accident in 1968, the year he represented Italy at the Venice Biennale. And, at Pirelli HangarBicocca, a vast former tire factory, is a monumental Anselm Kiefer installation and two temporary shows: Ground Break by Nari Ward and Call and gather by Chiara Camoni.

Among the big ticket items at Miart this year were works by Italian artists like Giorgio de Chirico, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti and Carribbean Tea Time, a gorgeous painted screen by David Hockney that sold for US$480,000 within the first two hours of the fair opening.

One of the most memorable booths was the Milanese Galleria Raffaella Cortese with a single artwork, a bronze swing that visitors were invited to try out. Created by Francesco Arena, the swing was available in an edition of three, all of which were sold the first day for $US 35,000 each.

In the Emergent section, a solo presentation by Alexis Soul-Gray was a real standout at Los Angeles gallery Bel Ami’s booth. The UK-based artist’s works combine painting, drawing and collage, using imagery from Italian Renaissance painting and advertisements idealizing family life from popular British magazines.

The Herno Prize, a 10,000-euro prize, for the art fair’s best booth went to Galerie Buchholz, (Cologne – Berlin – New York), with a well thought out presentation of works by Paul Thek and Isa Genzken, Lukas Duwenhögger and Lutz Bacher.

At a painting-heavy fair, at Lugano-based gallery Repetto’s stand, it was good to be reminded of Robert Smithson’s monumental 1970 installation Spiral Jetty, brilliantly captured on film by the late, great photojournalist, Gianfranco Gorgoni.

Tintin Nina disco, an installation of Argentinian artist Vivian Suter’s richly colored, large scale works at the Kaufmann Repetto (Milan – New York) booth was the culmination of decades of exploration into the treasures of the Guatemalan rainforest.

If you arrive by train in Milan this month, you’ll be greeted by a spectacular installation by French street artist JR French artist. La Nascita just outside Milan Central Station consists of a series of huge printed images of rock formations plastered onto aluminum slats and is on view until 1 May 2024.

A free public design exhibition at the University of Milan is another must visit this month. Interni Cross Vision, hosted by Interni magazine, is on until 28 April in and above the glorious historic courtyard of the University. Over 40 architecture and interior design exhibitions and installations showcase the best of Italian and international design including 70 designers from Brazil and from Turkey, Kutnia’s Weaving Inside Out, a dramatic draping of the imposing columns with luxurious swathes of striped and Ikat patterned fabrics.

Practicalities

British Airways and Ita Airways have numerous daily flights to Milan Linate airport, a smaller and delightfully easy to navigate airport, only 20 minutes from the city center.

Where to Stay

For a luxury stay in Milan, an excellent option in the Porta Nuova district, is the super stylish Principe di Savoia, part of the Dorchester Group. For smaller budgets, the four star NH Milano City Life is right beside the art fair and the metro or in the city center, Sonder Missori is a chic choice.