The Blank is happy to announce the Open Studio of Simona Andrioletti and Filippo Marzocchi, winners of the HIGHLIGHTS residency program 2^nd edition.

On 15^th February at 6pm, on the occasion of the award ceremony and the final Open Studio, the artists will present their artistic project, realized during their stay on the territory, at Spazio QUARENGHICINQUANTA.

Simona Andrioletti will present the project Google IT!, realized in collaboration with Giacomo and Pio Manzù high school students. This work is born by some reflections about Moravia’s oration at Pasolini’s funeral, by a YouTube video and by an Umberto Eco’s letter to his adolescent nephew, where he explains the importance of keeping the memory exercised and of knowledge. The artist invited the students to ask questions about topics that, in their opinion, is important to know. Questions linked to studied subjects, which are fundamental and should be passed on.

Filippo Marzocchi, during the residency stay, focused on his pictorial production, specifically in the “Icon” series, where he analyzes the relation between painting and technological devices through the iconic structure of the picture, highlighting the relationship between man and these objects. There are some fundamental features in this production: the construction of rounded-angle frames, a defined use of a precise color palette and research for signs and road signs as pictorial support.

HIGHLIGHTS residency program is realized in partnership with FARE, with the support of MIBAC and SIAE, in the initiative “Sillumina – Copia private per I giovani, per la cultura”, aimed at under35 Italian artists. Projects were selected by the international jury composed by Domenico De Chirico (independent curator and artistic director at DAMA), Stefano Raimondi (curator and critic) and Driant Zeneli (artist and artistic director at Mediterranea18).

Simona Andrioletti, born in Bergamo in 1990, lives and works in Munich. She graduated at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, studying with Gianni Caravaggio. She studied visual arts at Academie der Bildende Kunst in Munich with professors Gregor Schneider, Simon Starling and Olaf Nicolai. Simona has been selected among the finalists of the Talent Prize for two years and has participated in the related exhibitions at MACRO in Rome, in October 2016 and December 2017. She presented her work at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, at Nir Altman Galerie, Stiftung Federkiel and at Kunstverein München in Munich, at Réfectoire des nonnes and at Palais Bondy in Lyon, at Waterworks Falkenstein in Hamburg. Her first solo show “And there was evening and there was morning” was hosted in 2016 at Twenty14 Gallery in Milan. She is among the founders of Residenza d’artista Carloforte, an artistic residency on San Pietro isle in Sardegna.

Filippo Marzocchi was born in 1989 in Forlì. His practice is based on images and sounds, developd and deepened through painting, performance and site-specific projects. His work investigates human perception, developing research about reality’s structure and about how people perceive time and space as a continuous movement. His work has been shown in institutions, galleries and independent spaces such as: Zabludowicz Collection, London; PAV Parco Arte Vivente, Turin; Istituto italiano di cultura a Parigi, Paris; UCA, Canterbury; Piramidon Centre d’Arte Contemporani, Barcelona; MAMbo, Bologna; LOCALEDUE, Bologna; CAR DRDE, Bologna; Sale Docks, Venice; Gaffdabasso, Milan; Galeria Fran Reus, Palma de Mallorca. He participated in residencies such as: Cripta747, Turin; Progetto Borca, Dolomiti Contemporanee; ManufattoinSitu, Viaindustriae; Esecuzione di Santa Caterina, Viaindustriae. In 2016 he co-founded with Mattia Pajè the space Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio in Bologna. He has been represented by Galeria Fran Reus since 2016.

Special thanks to:
Prof. Enrico De Pascale
Spazio Quarenghi50
F.lli Allieri

info:
The Blank Contemporary Art
Via G. Quarenghi 50 – 24122 Bergamo, Italy
PH +39 035 19903477
E: info@theblankresidency.it

On Fridat 1st February, The Blank proposes The Blank Kitchen | Riccardo Baruzzi – Pane e Salame, a culinary event organized at Riccardo Baruzzi atelier-house in Bologna, h. 6-11 pm.

The Blank Kitchen was born with the aim ti create a relationship between some of the most interesting artists of the international scene and art lovers and curious through a transversal and unifying instrument such as food and cooking.

The artist house will be open to the public in its authenticity, showing the artist’s work and his private collection.

The menu will include bread, salami and wine. With “pane e salame”, the artist wants to homage humility, using a plastic table cloth and odd dishes as part of a gipsy landscape and greengrocer’s signboards remembering the artist’s hometown.

Riccardo Baruzzi, born in Lugo in 1976, paints drawings and draws paintings to reveal the origin of images, to understand their sign-based essence. During this analysis and synthesis process about the undisclosed essence of things, it happens that Riccardo Baruzzi involves the human being. Fine arts students, collectors, gallerists participate in the artist’s performances and they are given the task of interacting with the painting display or with the creative moment itself.
Flowers, pornography, Madonnas, tackles, horses, gods, schedules, everything finds its sign-based and pictorial sublimation in a universe of semi-transparent canvases, imaginary brushes, two meters long pencils, perfect cacophonies and deceitful euphonies, trembling boxes and concave foils on turntables.

Event realized in collaboration with P420.

The Blank Residency presents Miguel Guzmán Pastor: The METARESIDENCY Project 

Curated by Cristina Rota, Paola Tognon

2 – 11 settembre 2013

The Blank Residency, Via Quarenghi 50, Bergamo, Italia

info@theblankresidency.it
ww.theblankresidency.it

Project Proposal Residency is an artist residency project.

The purpose of the project is to give hospitality to Italian and international artists for a short/medium period and offer them accommodation and relations aimed to develop artistic researches both practical and theoretical. The residency is conceived as a meeting and work place where share ideas and experiences. The artists in residence will be asked to work on a project proposal which will be produced during their staying and to share it with The Blank. The project proposal will be presented at the conclusion of the residency during the Open Studio day.

The Blank Residency hosts Arianna Ferrari and Alexandros Pissourios.

The Blank is glad to present “ATTRAVERSAMENTI”, the residency project in the context of «Viavai+», an initiative promoted by Ticino and Vallese cantons and by Regione Lombardia in collaboration with Fondazione svizzera per la cultura Pro Helvetia.

The residency programme promotes the mobility of Ticinese, Valais and Lombard artists working in the field of visual arts. 

The artists who will take part to the project at The Blank Residency are:

From 1 march to 30 april Maëlle Cornut (1986) – Canton Vallese

From 15 may to 15 july Marta Margnetti (1989) – Canton Ticino

Italian artists invited by The Blank to take part in the VIAVAI + residency project are: 

Diego Marcon at Malévoz Quartier Culturel de Monthe, Canton du Valais

Tea Androletti  at Sasso Residency, Vairano S. Nazzaro, Canton Ticino

http://www.viavai-cultura.net/progetto/27/Scambio-di-residenze

The Blank presents The Blank TR Pavilion, curated by Claudia Santeroni and Olga Vanoncini, under the patronage of Italian Cultural Institute of Tel Aviv.

The Blank TR Pavilion will take place on Sunday 2, Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 September 2018 during Beyond Words, video and performance festival curated by Liliana Orbach and hosted by Artspace Tel Aviv, Shvil HaMeretz 6.

The Blank TR Pavilion – Curated by Claudia Santeroni and Olga Vanoncini – Program
Three days of talks, workshops, performances about art and the meaning of communication. Produced by The Blank Contemporary Art, cultural association based in Bergamo, Italy.
Contacts: tr@theblank.it, +972 058 6882460
http://www.theblank.it/category/projects/transit-messages/

Day 1: Sunday 2 Sept 2018
• (17.30–19.00) Screening “Focus on Flavia Mastrella”
Lecturer: Claudia Santeroni
Screening of a video by Flavia Mastrella and following overview on the artist’s practice. Flavia Mastrella (Anzi o, 1960) is an Italian visual artist who mainly operates in theatre direction and scenography design with her artistic partner and performer Antonio Rezza.
In early 2018 they received the Leone d’Oro award for their career.

• (19.00–20.00) Workshop “Crossing the Blue/Live”
Conductor: Olga Vanoncini
Site specific artistic workshop including video-projection of original material, discussion, hands-on creative process in individual and group work via collage, installation, performance.

• (20.00–21.30) Screening “Focus on Hanne Lippard”
Lecturer: Claudia Santeroni
Screening of a video by Hanne Lippard and following overview on the artist’s practice.Hanne Lippard (Milton Keynes, GB, 1984) is a Norwegian artist who mainly works with video and voice, which she uses as a way to convey the discrepancy between content and form.

• Ongoing: happening and exhibition

Day 2: Monday 3 Sept 2018
• (17.00-18.00) Workshop with kids and parents “Design and create your own letter writing set”
*Event open to kids and parents
Conductor: Olga Vanoncini
Creative workshop to create a letter writing set using different papers to build the set and decorate it with stencil, stickers, glitter and more. Including a slideshow about letters in history.

• (18.00-19.00) talk “Where is my message? – About being in between”
When the message in transit (TR) is a person: a conversation about people in transition and transitions of people in society and in personal life.
Olga Vanoncini Visual artist and educator
Fiammetta Martegani (Milano, Italy, 1981) Ph.D.in Anthropology and Curator at Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel. She did her Postdoctoral Program in Cinema and Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University, with a dissertation in Anthropology on the representation of the Israeli soldier in Israeli Art and Cinema.
Since 2009 she is a correspondent from Israel for Italian magazines and cultural radio programs and she combines projects between Anthropology and Art in Italy and in Israel. In 2015 she published her first novel: Life on Mars and in 2017 she published her Ph.D. research: The Israeli Defence Forces’ Representation in Israeli Cinema.

• (19.00-19.30) Performance “A final performance of a fax machine before it disappears”
What brought the revolution in the wired transmission media is moving away from the world. The fax will send its last messages.
The public is invited to come and to say goodbye.
Artist: Reut Asimini (1983, lives and works in Tel-Aviv), MFA from Hunter College in NYC and BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.
Asimini is an interdisciplinary artist, working with painting, video installation and sculpture. Reflecting on different aspects of everyday life, her work explores how bodies perform in space and how they relate to subjects such as womanhood, cultural beliefs, traditions and behaviors. She sees art as a place of wishful-thinking and emphasizes the power of art works to reimagine the transformation of one’s life.

• Ongoing: happening and exhibition

The Blank TR Pavilion, curated by Claudia Santeroni and Olga Vanoncini will take place on Sunday 2, Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 September 2018 during
Beyond Words, video and performance festival curated by Liliana Orbach and hosted by Artspace Tel Aviv, Shvil HaMeretz 6.

Day 3: Tuesday 4 Sept 2018
• (18.00-19.30) Screening “Focus on Enrico Boccioletti”
Lecturer: Claudia Santeroni
Screening of a video by Enrico Boccioletti and following overview on the artist’s practice.
Enrico Boccioletti (Pesaro, 1984) is an Italian multisciplinary artist whose practice is mainly focused on the consequences of technology encountering one’s intimacy, investigating structures of empathy existing in-between and beyond verbal communication.

• (19.30-20.00) Presentation: sound as transit message
Conductor: Hagit Emma Werner, independent curator and architect based in Tel Aviv. Her primary practice and research focuses on the “sonic event” and the perspective of listening. Among her curated projects are the exhibition series “composition for TimeSpace” (2017) co-curated with Tal Lanir, Songs of the next War (2016), Cave Study (2015) all in Tel Aviv Museum. Werner is also the founder and curator of SoundArtPassage (2013-2016) and is currently working on a new “Sound Space” to be open soon in Tel Aviv

• (20.30-22.00) live performance
Creating electronic soundscapes from improvisation and adaptation, the performance unites synthesized sound with live instruments and vocals. Original compositions are being dismembered and rearranged in a way that creates a unique experience for the here & now. The result is modulated through the emotion of the moment.
Artist: Yonatan Rukhman (Israel, 1976) artist and producer based in Tel Aviv, he has worked in a wide range of musical genres in Israel & Europe. With a classical background, he has witnessed the transformation of analog into digital and has experienced both composition and research. Upon returning to Israel he has started to release songs written and performed by him in Hebrew.
His latest single is Dimdumim: https://youtu.be/1I9aVeHUGX8

• Beyond Words party

• Ongoing: happening and exhibition

Curators Claudia Santeroni and Olga Vanoncini bring The Blank TR – Transit Message in tour to Tel Aviv in the form of TR Pavilion, a three days intensive workshop/performance/exhibition focused on the process. TR Pavilion is extended on a process lasting three days of talks, workshops, performances about art and the meaning of communication. All the materials produced are conveyed in an ongoing changing display and happening that constitutes the exhibition.

The Blank TR Pavilion will take place on Sunday 2, Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 September 2018 during Beyond Words, video and performance festival curated by Liliana Orbach and hosted by Artspace Tel Aviv, Shvil HaMeretz 6.

• Beyond Words – An international video & performance event.

Created and curated by Dr. Liliana Orbach
The many fields of creativity have used visuals that combine written and/or spoken words for many decades. With the development of the media, the transmission of explicit and also subliminal messages has become increasingly sophisticated and complex.Beyond Words focuses on the points of contact between the two means of expression, aiming to measure the degree of effectiveness, success or failure in communicating the desired content.Beyond Words seeks for the ways in which creators from different backgrounds manipulate the written/sounding word within the visual language, as a way to reach the world around them. The event, which includes a wide range of works, seeking to provide the platform for a
variety of interpretations, will be held during the first week of September 2018 at Artspace Tel Aviv. Its program include a symposium, video screenings, performances, workshops and encounters between creators, curators and local audiences.

• Artspace Tel Aviv non-profit foundation, bringing together dozens of artists who work in a unique area, located in southern Tel-Aviv, consisting of a remarkable concentration of approximately 300 active artists who work in the neighborhood, as well as many art galleries located there. The foundation operates as a gallery with a pluralistic approach, that holds dozens of exhibitions, artist walls, lectures, cultural events and more.
The gallery collaborates with different schools, also functioning as a meeting and activity spot for artists, curators and guests.

Liliana Orbach, interdisciplinary artist, independent curator and lecturer. Born in Argentina. Lives and woks in Tel Aviv. Her background includes a Masters Degree in Arts, earned at Call State University, Fullerton, USA and a PhD in Arts, earned at the Multimedia department of the Poznan Arts University, Poland. She is an active creator, who exhibits her works within Israel and also abroad. She has been invited to curate a variety of local / international art related programs, as part of events such as the video art
festival Loop-Barcelona, Spain, The Four Cultures Festival, Lodz, Poland, Cinetoro Experimental Film Festival, Cali, Colombia, among many others.

The Blank Kitchen | Marta Margnetti – Remiscelata is part of “ATTRAVERSAMENTI” a project realized in the context of «Viavai +», an initiative promoted by the cantons of Ticino and Valais and Regione Lombardia in collaboration with Pro Helvetia Swiss Cultural Foundation.

Tuesday 10 July 2018
The Blank Residency, via G. Quarenghi, 50 – Bergamo
Photo: Maria Zanchi

Valentina Furian and Letizia Scarpello are the winners of the first part of HIGHLIGHTS.

The projects were selected by the international jury composed of:
Domenico De Chirico (independent curator), Stefano Raimondi (curator, The Blank President) and Driant Zeneli (artist and artistic director of Mediterranea18).

Valentina Furian (Venice, 1989, lives and works between Venice and Rome). Her research develops starting from processes of re-elaboration of reality through the insertion of forms deviated from the custom. She is interested in the reappropriation, through the human taming of nature. The artist’s interest also aims at creating new places, modeling the space on a sculptural level and creating new enviroments.

Letizia Scarpello (Pescara, 1989, lives and works in Milan). She studied Costume and Scenography at the Brera Academy of Milan after a three-year degree in Fashion Design at the Istituto Marangoni in London. Analyzing the textile world in relation to human attitudes and social environments, she gradually focused her attention on the idea of ​​relationship, also inspired by dancing, which she practiced for more than ten years, the theater and the performing arts.

The artists will have the opportunity to develop the projects related to their artistic practice and to meet the public through open studios and informal conferences in which they will present their work and their activities.

The Blank  Kitchen | Sissi – Onnivora Palette
On the occasion of The Blank ArtDate 2018 Frequenze / Frequencies, The Blank renews the appointment with The Blank Kitchen inviting Sissi as the leading artist.

Sunday 27 May 2018
The Blank Residency, via G. Quarenghi, 50 – Bergamo
Photo: Maria Zanchi

The Blank Kitchen | Maëlle Cornut – Green Menu is part of “ATTRAVERSAMENTI” a project realized in the context of «Viavai+», an initiative promoted by the cantons of Ticino and Valais and Regione Lombardia in collaboration with Pro Helvetia Swiss Cultural Foundation.

Thursday 26 April 2018
The Blank Residency, via G. Quarenghi 50 – Bergamo
Photo: Anna Pezzoli

ARTDATE
Contemporary Art Festival
XI edition
NEL TEMPO SOSPESO
11 12 13 14 November Bergamo

NEL TEMPO SOSPESO is the theme of the 11th edition of the Contemporary Art Festival ArtDate that will take place in Bergamo from November 11 to 14.
It is a large reflection on the indeterminacy and apprehension that is characterizing this unforgettable period of which we are all protagonists and testimonials, a historical phase also full of expectations and desires.

Thursday 11th, Friday 12th, Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th November, Bergamo will host the 11th edition of ArtDate, Contemporary Art Festival organized by The Blank.
Over the years, ArtDate has become a reference point able to approach and promote contemporary art to a large and diversified audience. In this edition, ArtDate presents many important innovations, focusing on the theme of suspended time, refreshing the attention to the issues of accessibility and participation.

S A L E
Where everything seems to be on sale, there is the risk of losing what really matters.

On Friday 13 December 2019 took place a special event organised in collaboration with The Blank by the Bergamo-based communication agency specialising in branding: Quid – Value to communication, sponsor of the exhibition Il Corpo Insensato (2019-2020, Palazzo della Ragione, curated by Stefano Raimondi), with two special guests: Andrea Mastrovito and Giuseppe Stampone dialogued with Stefano Raimondi, director of The Blank, and Lorenzo Sommariva, owner of Quid, on the union of art and communication, posing as a main question the question “what combines art and branding?”. Giuseppe Stampone also presented his new collection Sale, a series designed to remind how art is often confined to a decorative functions, at the expense of its expressive and critical power.

Andrea Mastrovito and Giuseppe Stampone share the same ability to create images and works that appear to be easy to understand but which, on the other hand, reveal a plurality of interpretations, great sensibility and a lot of artistic and other references.

In occasion of the 15th edition of BAF – Bergamo Arte Fiera, Andrea Mastrovito (Bergamo, Italy – 1978) and Vincenzo Simone (Seraing, Belgium – 1980), proposed a series of works as part of the benefit activities supporting the programming of The Blank.

THE BLANK 10^th ANNIVERSARY

JONATHAN MONK
BENEFITS TO SUPPORT THE ASSOCIATION’S ACTIVITIES

To celebrate in the best way the milestone of the first 10 years of activity, The Blank has had the pleasure to collaborate with the British artist Jonathan Monk who has realized exclusively for the association a new series of artworks whose proceeds will support the realization of new exhibitions and projects. The works take the ironic title Shelf Life, an English expression that defines the period of time during which a good can be stored without becoming unsuitable for use, consumption, or sale.

At the same time, the artwork is presented as a bookcase of life, where the chalk simulates the spines of books that accompany us through time. The series was created for the exhibition The Gift. On Life and Death that on 13^th November 2020 will open in Bergamo on the occasion of the Festival of Contemporary Art, Artdate.

Personal exhibitions have been dedicated to Jonathan Monk (Leicester, 1969. Lives and works in Berlin) at some of the most prestigious international institutions, including Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, Ireland), Kunsthaus Baselland (Muttenz, Switzerland). His work has been included in many events, including the Whitney Biennial (2006), the 50th and 53rd Biennale di Venezia (2003, 2009), the Berlin Biennale (2001), and the Taipei Biennale (2000). In 2012 he was awarded the Prix du Quartier Des Bains, in Geneva.

JONATHAN MONK
Shelf life, 2020
Chalk on canvas series of 36 unique pieces
24 x 30 cm

800 €/ each
* The amount is paid as a contribution and liberal disbursement in support of the different cultural activities promoted by the Association “THE BLANK” and is deductible under the combined provisions of articles 100 paragraph 2 letter h) D.P.R. 917/1986 and art. 14 c. 1 D.L. 35/2005 – Social security contributions

for info and reservations: associazione@theblank.it

ARTDATE | ON-LINE
Contemporary Art Festival X edizione
IL DONO | THE GIFT

The Gift | The Gift is the theme of the 10th edition of the Contemporary Art Festival ArtDate which took place in Bergamo from 12th to 15th November.
As a reaction to the difficult historical moment we are living through, The Blank has chosen to convert the Festival into digital form instead of canceling it, thus giving a signal of resistance from the world of culture.

Here’s the links to see all the events of the Festival:

INAUGURAL LECTURE BY MASSIMO FINI
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
Massimo Fini, journalist and writer, in conversation with Claudia Santeroni on the theme of the “Gift” through a reading of Denaro, sterco del demonio, his essay written following the footsteps of Marcel Mauss.

EXHIBITION THE GIFT. ON LIFE AND DEATH
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
Link audio-videoguide in Italian and Italian Sign Language (LIS)
In waiting the exhibition to be open to the public, the curator Stefano Raimondi brings us to discover the artworks by Matilde Cassani, Alberto Garutti, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Andrea Mastrovito, Jonathan Monk, Andrea Romano, Namsal Siedlecki.

TALK with ED ATKINS and DAVID KAMP
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
Ed Atkins (artist and curator), David Kamp (composer and sound designer) and Stefano Raimondi (president of The Blank) discuss the exhibition project The Act Of Seeing With One’s Own Eye, that pays tribute to the production of the father of experimental cinema Stan Brakhage and David Kamp’s research.

GALLERIES TIME
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
The galleries and exhibition spaces of Bergamo and province present their projects through short videos.

TALK INFERNI. PAROLE E IMMAGINI DI UN’UMANITÀ AL CONFINE
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
Giuliano Zanchi presents the book by Giovanna Brambilla in conversation with the author.

TALK METAFOTOGRAFIA (2). THE MUTATIONS OF IMAGES
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
Presentation of the book with Sara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi, Corrado Benigni, Teresa Giannico, Alessandro Sambini.

TALK ART, SIGNS, PERFORMANCE. REFLECTIONS ON VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Link Facebook
Link YouTube
curated by The Blank LISten Project
Rita Mazza (artistic director of Festival of Silence and sign performer), Nicola Della Maggiora (Visual Vernacular artist), Claudia Santeroni and Maria Marzia Minelli (curators engaged in a research on performance practices) introduce a reflection on Sign Language and its relationship with performative, theatrical and Visual Vernacular practices.

The works of Matilde Cassani and Andrea Romano were realized for The Gift exhibition during the residency at The Blank, made possible thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo.
The Festival is the result of a cultural agreement with the Municipality of Bergamo aimed at promoting and enhancing Bergamo as a city of art and culture. ArtDate is supported by the Lombardy Region and recognized by the EFFE – Europe for Festival, Festivals for Europe platform for its artistic quality, the involvement of the local community, and at the same time the European breath.

The Residence IN PRATICA is the winning project of the call for proposals “Per Chi Crea”, supported by Mibac and SIAE, realized in collaboration with AIR – artinresidence and in partnership with da FARE and Viaindustriae. From October to November 2019, 6 Italian artists under 35, selected by an international jury, realize a residency program that take them to Foligno and Bergamo.

The artists have been selected among the candidates from the residencies of the AIR-artinresidence network called to collaborate in the project, each one proposing up to a maximum of two Italian artists under 35.

The winners are:

Giovanni Chiamenti candidate from VIR Viafarini-in-residence, Matteo Coluccia candidate from GuilmiArtProject, Edoardo Ciaralli candidate from GuilmiArtProject, Mattia Ferretti candidate from Diogene-Bivaccourbano, Ludovico Orombelli candidate from R.A.M.O. Ritratto a Mano and Roberto Memoli candidate from RAMDOM.

The jury that selected the winning artists is composed of Stefano Raimondi, Carlo Sala and Eugenio Viola.

Thursday 14, Friday 15, Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 November, Bergamo hosts the ninth edition of the ArtDate Contemporary Art Festival, organized for the first time in the autumn, the protagonist of a cultural program of the city that runs throughout the year.
Over time it has become a point of reference capable of bringing contemporary art closer to and promoting a broad and diverse audience, the ninth edition of the Festival presents numerous important innovations, giving main attention to the themes of accessibility and participation.
Being part / Being part of, developed around 6 thematic sections (Show Time, Talk, Collections and Homes, Studio Visit, Kids, ArtErasmus), is an extensive reflection on the meaning of sharing, which starts from the human body and extends up to social and political body.
The theme around which the Festival is based is linked to the importance of the activity and autonomy of the individual operator within a system that supports and enhances its uniqueness, an analysis of cooperation in respect of contextual independence.
Come to an organism, where the greeting and the self-sufficiency of the parts are present in the well-being of the body it hosts, so the various realities that participate in ArtDate retain and cultivate their own singularity, but in the belief that coordinating is simpler than the intended purpose:
in this case, the growth and strengthening of the city’s cultural life.
The collective commitment is therefore combined with the high degree of autonomy and individual initiative in favor of the pursuit of shared intent.
The Festival turns into more than 30 events involving the whole city of Bergamo. The works of over 100 artists are presented and the projects include prestigious institutions such as GAMeC – Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bergamo, Castello di Rivoli Education Department, Museum of Contemporary Art, BeGo – Benozzo Gozzoli Museum, MAMbo – Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and TATE Modern in London.

On Friday 24 January 2019 The Blank proposes The Blank Kitchen | Irene Fenara – Tea and biscuits, a culinary event organized on the occasion of Bologna Art Week in Irene Fenara’s studio in Bologna.

The Blank Kitchen was born with the desire to bring some of the most interesting artists of the international scene in relation with art lovers and the curious through a transversal and convivial tool such as food and cooking.

Born in Bologna in 1990, Irene Fenara is an Italian artist who works mainly with video installation and photographic experimentation, focusing on interaction with surveillance cameras. Her research investigates the concept of time and memory, working with images that overturn points of view and generate situations of spatial disorientation, “with one eye on technology and the other on the sky”.

The Blank Benefit 2014
Guest Artist: Andrea Mastrovito
evening hosted by Cristina Rodeschini

Artists who donated:
David Adamo, Salvatore Arancio, Christian Fogarolli, Oscar Giaconia, Jan Kaesbach, Daniele Maffeis, Jacopo Miliani, Mladen Miljanovic, Gianni Politi, Luigi Presicce, Agne Raceviciute, Vincenzo Simone.

The Blank Benefit 2013

Artists who have donated:
Alis / Filliol, Davide Allieri, Francesco Arena, Riccardo Beretta, Filippo Berta, Simone Berti, Mariella Bettineschi, Davide Casari, Emma Ciceri, Cuoghi Corsello, Mario Cresci, Giovanni De Lazzari, Cécile B. Evans, Ettore Favini, Arianna Ferrari, Ferrario Freres, Pasquale Gadaleta, Oscar Giaconia, Marco Grimaldi, Miguel Guzmàn Pastor, Adelita Husni-Bey, Alex Martinis Roe, Andrea Mastrovito, Francesco Pedrini, Alexandros Pissourios, Grayson Revoir, Andrea Romano, Giuseppe Stampone, Maria Francesca Tassi, Gian Maria Tosatti.