Articles tagged with: contemporary art
Food and art is sMART
Pretty, pop, delicious, social. A new exhibit at the MART in Rovereto seems to show that the key to getting people into the museum is to talk about food. Or to talk about food as art, or food in art. How to draw crowds is a dilemma that all museums face now, more than ever, …
Castiglione della Pescaia and the road to contemporary art
Far from the bright lights of Florence and Siena, it’s hard for a small town art gallery to get any notice in Tuscany. After all, the region’s nature has been the muse for artists since the age when paint was little more than crushed earth pasted to a stone wall canvas, but there are not …
Cindy Sherman Early Works at Gucci Museum
A lot of modern and contemporary art is about the sense of self. Cindy Sherman, who works almost exclusively using herself as a model, is, unquestionably, about identity. And as such, I feel authorized to reflect on her work in relation to… myself.
Public art and the Piazza – Paladino in Santa Croce
The topic of this month’s Italy Roundtable is the piazza, and Florens 2012 handed me the perfect solution to what to write. On the occasion of the Biennial of cultural and environmental heritage, Fondazione Florens commissioned an impactful work of public art by the Italian contemporary artist Mimmo Paladino. Piazza Santa Croce became a magical …
Tano Pisano’s tribute to Palazzo Davanzati
Tano Pisano is a Sicilian artist (born 1947) who has lived in recent years in Spain. With this latest exhibit in Florence, he explores the motifs and decorative arts found in Palazzo Davanzati.
This is the first time that the historic Palazzo Davanzati plays host to a contemporary artist’s works, which are displayed in the ground …
Art, Patronage, and Economics – reflections around Florens 2012
When we learn about Renaissance Florence, one of the first things any professor will introduce is banking and merchant culture, which permitted amassing wealth, which in turn permitted the commission of art and architecture, elaborate fashions, and imported luxury goods. The Medici family was not the first major patron, but it is the most famous, …
Japanese decorative arts at Palazzo Pitti
The exhibit “The Elegance of Memory” at Palazzo Pitti until July 1 2012 shows the progress of Japanese modern and contemporary decorative arts through the 20th century, as they move from emulation of traditional techniques (without the functions that drove them) towards artistic expression resulting in originality and individualistic personality in forms.
Museums in Basel: Modern Art, Architecture and Design
Swiss-born, Tuscan resident Katja Meier delights us with a modern take on Basel in this guest post… just in time for Art Basel (June 14-17, 2012)
In the early 90s I spent a year working at two of Basel’s theaters. These were my first jobs after graduating from Zurich University of the Arts, and whenever I …
Paul Fryer at Gucci Museum
It’s not every day that I find myself in a darkened room with someone who counts Damien Hirst amongst his close friends and collaborators. Okay, I was not alone. It was a press conference at the Gucci Museum in Florence for the exhibit “Lo Spirito Vola” (The Spirit Flies) by Paul Fryer.
Otto gallery opens in Florence
The big window at via Maggio 43r – the antiquarian street – is covered in brown paper, awaiting the unveiling and official opening party of “OTTO, luogo d’arte” that will take place this Wednesday March 16 2011. Is this city and this street of mostly dark and closed galleries ready for a luminous dash of …
Where to see Contemporary Art in Italy
Italy is not known for its contemporary art – at least not lately, and not in Italy itself. Recently a Tripadvisor member posted a question about where to see contemporary art in Tuscany and Italy and I realized that I’d never summarized it all in one post.
There was an interesting article in the New York …
Pablo Echaurren: Baroque ‘n’ Roll @MACRO
This exhibition title and the image I received from the MACRO press office was just too funny to resist. From Feb 12 to March 13 2011 at Macro in Rome check out six clever works by Echaurren that cross Baroque art with rock and roll. The large-scale ceramic sculptures recall the Baroque religious works – …
ArtTrav is a blog about expat life, art, and travel in Italy and Europe. I am Alexandra Korey, a Florence-based art historian turned blogger.
My goal is to help travelers and residents like you experience countries through culture and local living. If it takes geeky, long articles to do that, so be it! 
