Artissima’s 32nd Edition Grounded Global Contemporary Art in Regional Identity

November 5, 2025Uncategorized

<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1597390" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Artissima25-Colore-GP-004.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A small white model car with a precarious stack of miniature furniture and yellow cushions on its roof is displayed on a suspended platform at Artissima, with fair visitors blurred in the background." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Although a distinctly Italian sensibility runs through the fair’s context, fair director Luigi Fassi pointed out that the majority of participating galleries were not Italian. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Giorgio Perottino</span>’>A small white model car with a precarious stack of miniature furniture and yellow cushions on its roof is displayed on a suspended platform at Artissima, with fair visitors blurred in the background.

Artissima (Artissima Internazionale d’Arte Contemporanea di Torino for completists) returned last week with a roster of 176 participating galleries to the Oval Lingotto Fiere—originally built for the speed skating competitions of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games—in an industrial district of Turin. It’s a city where contemporary art has long set the pace for cultural innovation across Italy. The first contemporary art museum in Italy, Castello di Rivoli, was established here in 1984, 10 years prior to the launch of Artissima. The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opened almost concurrently with the fair’s debut, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAM) was already flourishing. Artissima came about as a market platform, but equally functioned as a complement to these budding institutions.

The fair was directed for the fourth year by Luigi Fassi, who nonetheless introduced himself as “100 percent a curator.” He first began working with Artissima by overseeing the Present Future section. Since about 2007, Artissima has only had curators as its directors—“which is very telling about the DNA, the spirit of the fair. I’m trying to strengthen this curatorial identity,” Fassi told Observer. He pointed out that more than 50 curators contributed to shaping this edition of the fair, working across its various sections and offsite projects.

“Obviously it is 100 percent a market platform. It has to be, it’ll always be. But I think it’s also an interpretation of what the market is about. I think you can be instrumental for the participating galleries by introducing them to curators, to institutions… It’s important to keep mixing these two sides. We have to work as a service platform.” As for those the fair targets, Fassi noted, “We try to be inclusive towards a middle-class kind of collector, the Italian and international bourgeoisie. Collecting culture in Italy has always been a middle-class game. We all grew up in Italy, regardless of our income, in apartments where our grandparents and our parents had paintings hanging on the wall. So it’s really ingrained. It’s not necessarily like this everywhere, not even in Europe. In Italy, it’s our culture.”

<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1597392" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Ilaria-Vinci-Starry-Night-Moon-2025-Jesmonite-Hahnemuhle-rice-paper-19-x-30-x-30-cm.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A circular sculptural work resembling a decorated cake shows a printed image of a moonlit sky with a yellow leaf and text in Italian, referencing celestial and earthly cycles." width="970" height="647" data-caption='Ilaria Vinci, <em>Starry Night (Moon)</em>, 2025. Jesmonite, Hahnemühle rice paper, 19 x 30 x 30 cm. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Courtesy the artist and Alice Amati gallery</span>’>A circular sculptural work resembling a decorated cake shows a printed image of a moonlit sky with a yellow leaf and text in Italian, referencing celestial and earthly cycles.

Although this distinctly Italian sensibility grounds the fair’s context, Fassi pointed out that the majority of participating galleries were not Italian. “It’s like 60 percent international, 40 percent Italian. There are not that many regional fairs where the local players are a minority.” The fair is publicly owned, though it doesn’t receive any public money; it belongs to Fondazione Torino Musei, alongside major museum institutions. “I don’t have to respond to a CEO asking me to generate more money. This is my plus. I can reinvest whatever I earn into the fair, in favor of the galleries. If you don’t have to generate money for shareholders, then you think differently.”

As a curator, Fassi had high expectations for the booth presentations. “One work less is better than one work more,” he said. There were around 30 monographic booths, which he noted “gives you an idea of the level of trust the galleries have towards artists, because obviously it’s a bit more risky to come and have just one artist, but it’s fantastic for collectors. Collectors do love that, because they can really delve into the practice of the artist.” The fair also featured dialogues, including one from London-based gallery Alice Amati, which brought together Romanian-born, Vienna-based painter Paul Robas—whose works ranged from €3,000-6,000 and sold during the preview day—and Italian sculptor Ilaria Vinci, based in Zurich, whose celestial-inspired birthday cake sculptures ranged from €2,500-€4,000 and drew particular attention. Amati, presenting for the second time at the fair after graduating from the New Entries section, noted, “I’m originally Italian, so it makes sense to connect with the scene here.” She described herself as being in a “testing phase” with fairs and plans to return not only to Artissima but also NADA Miami in December.

An art fair booth with white walls features colorful contemporary paintings and sculptural works, including two ironing boards placed like installations in the center of the space.An art fair booth with white walls features colorful contemporary paintings and sculptural works, including two ironing boards placed like installations in the center of the space.

Representing the Turin scene was Biasutti & Biasutti, founded in 2000 by Attilio Biasutti with his son Giuseppe and daughter Paola. The gallery presented a project on the Arte Povera movement with four artists engaging with nature: Piero Gilardi (€150,000-450,000), Giovanni Anselmo (€10,000-400,000), Giulio Paolini (€10,000-70,000) and Mario Merz (€40,000-400,000), including his emblematic Fibonacci series. Paolo Biasutti noted that during Turin’s art week there were “good vibrations,” but that “Turin is a city with a magic,” adding that “with all the difficulties of the moment, we have to overcome things, and [the fair] is a way to overcome things.” The gallery also participates in Bologna’s Arte Fiera, although Biasutti admitted it draws a more national crowd.

An installation view at Artissima shows a mixed-media artwork with a translucent net-like fabric stretched across a wall displaying glowing numbers, and a glass-covered box on the floor containing stones and yellow plant-like objects.An installation view at Artissima shows a mixed-media artwork with a translucent net-like fabric stretched across a wall displaying glowing numbers, and a glass-covered box on the floor containing stones and yellow plant-like objects.

More international in scope was Thomas Dane Gallery, which also shows annually at Frieze and Art Basel. Senior director Federica Sheehan told Observer that the gallery, which participated in Artissima from 2010 to 2012, returned in 2023 after opening a Naples location in 2018. “We’ve noticed an increase in foreign visitors,” she said of this edition. The nearby Pinacoteca Agnelli presented a work by one of the gallery’s artists, Paul Pfeiffer, who realized a project on the Pista 500 billboard in collaboration with Artissima. Pfeiffer’s work at the booth featured a deconstructed Justin Bieber body, which became “the most photographed work of the booth… maybe of the fair,” Sheehan said, noting its focus on “religion and pop media at the same time.” Still, photographs by Luigi Ghirri (€11,000) sold first and briskly during the preview day.

Among the New Entries section, which featured 12 emerging international galleries with less than five years of activity, was PİLEVNELİ—founded by Murat Pilevneli in 2017 in Istanbul’s Dolapdere district—appearing for the first time with work by Bora Akıncıtürk (€6,000-€10,000). Pilevneli admitted to being new to the Turin scene but observed that “in the end, all fairs are very similar. The only change is some are more local and some are international.” He described Turin as being on the “local” side of the spectrum but was pleased to encounter Turkish collectors. Akıncıtürk, meanwhile, played with the notion of the fair itself, noting that “conceptually, today’s fairs are generally this dystopian ecological hypercapitalist [thing].” His work, drawn from found online images, takes a “Pop Art-y, kinda flashy colorful” approach—depicting, in this instance, a pair of glimmering secondhand Margiela boots from Vinted and a lesbian pornstar-turned-activist. I think [the work] touches on the market because it is especially about late-stage capitalism,” he added, acknowledging the bottom line underpinning even the most high-minded aesthetics in such a context.

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