Arte & Fiera 40

A book that traces 40 years of the history of Arte Fiera, the first and the most emblematic art fair in Italy that has become one of the main fairs in the international calendar.  In the words of Achille Bonito Oliva Arte Fiera is “a noble fair”. Since the fair’s inception the best of Italian art, in addition to some notable international work, has passed through Bologna.

The book is divided into four parts, the first of which is dedicated to the exhibition Arte Fiera 40 at the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna from the 28th January to the 28th March 2016. The exhibition includes works by maestri that have starred in different editions of the fair and traces the main artistic tendencies from the 1920s until today. The second part, however, is dedicated to the acquisitions made directly by Arte Fiera over the course of the years. A selection of the 350 works acquired, in this case limited to Italian artists that include figures such as Boetti, Mondino, Ontani, Salvo and Festa, will go on display for the very first time at MAMbo, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bologna.The third part of the book is a collection of the testimonies of the gallery owners, collectors, artists and the event’s organizers, who have contributed in their own way to making Arte Fiera what it is today. These recollections combine to tell the story of the last forty years of artistic adventures.The fourth part collects critical reviews and interviews with artists such as Concetto Pozzati and Marcello Jori and critics including Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Renato Barilli and Luca Beatrice, who reconstruct the fecund meeting between the cultural foundations of the city of Bologna and the art world that led to the birth of Arte Fiera in the mid 1970s.