art world italy gallery boom

Austrian art dealer Thaddaeus Ropac is opening a new gallery in Milan, his seventh location, despite initial concerns over Italy's high value-added tax (VAT) on art, which was Europe's highest at 22 percent. The Italian government slashed the VAT to 5 percent in June after pressure from art market players, making it the lowest in the EU. The gallery, spanning over 3,000 square feet in the 18th-century Palazzo Belgioioso, opens on September 20 with a show featuring Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana, followed by exhibitions of Valie Export and Ketty La Rocca. Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa will serve as executive director.

VALIE EXPORT, icon of feminist art who placed the body at the center of her research, has died

È morta VALIE EXPORT, icona dell’arte femminista che ha messo il corpo al centro della sua ricerca

VALIE EXPORT, the Austrian artist and feminist icon known for using her body as a political and artistic tool, has died in Vienna at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she changed her name in 1967 and became a pioneer of performance, film, and media art, creating provocative works such as "Tapp-und Tastkino" (1968), where she turned her body into a touchable cinema screen, and "Aktionshose: Genitalpanik" (1969). Her career spanned over six decades, and she taught at institutions including the University of Wisconsin and the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2023, the Albertina Museum in Vienna held a major retrospective of her work.

What does Giovanni Muciaccia do after Art Attack? He continues to spread culture and tells us all about it in this interview

Cosa fa Giovanni Muciaccia dopo Art Attack? Continua a divulgare cultura e ci racconta tutto in questa intervista

Giovanni Muciaccia, the beloved host of the children's art show "Art Attack" that aired in Italy from 1998 to 2004 and again from 2011 to 2014, continues his mission of art education through books, theater performances, and a new online series. Now also an artist and collector himself, Muciaccia discusses his journey from television presenter to full-time art communicator, explaining how his early passion for art was sparked by a middle school teacher and deepened during his time filming in London, where he visited the newly opened Tate Modern and began studying contemporary art.

100 anni tra arte e poesia per annullare i confini. Intervista a Lamberto Pignotti

Lamberto Pignotti, the 100-year-old Florentine artist and poet and a leading figure in visual poetry, is celebrated with two concurrent exhibitions: "Pignotti 100. Pop-esie visive" at the Mart in Rovereto (in collaboration with the Collegio Cairoli of Pavia) and the dual solo show "Identikit di Pignotti e Hogre" curated by Marco Giovenale at Galleria Bianco Contemporaneo in Rome. The latter exhibition, born from a dialogue between Pignotti and the anonymous artist Hogre, centers on a collection of envelopes Pignotti has saved for over fifty years—each addressed to him with varying titles (architect, artist, poet, professor) or altered names (Alberto, Lorenzo, Mario, Giuseppe)—revealing his fragmented identity. Pignotti co-founded the Gruppo '70 in Florence in 1963 with Eugenio Miccini, a movement that brought together multidisciplinary artists including Lucia Marcucci, Ketty La Rocca, and musicians Giuseppe Chiari and Sylvano Bussotti.