MINIARTEXTIL THIRTY EDITION

The historic event dedicated to contemporary Fiber Art
postponed for a year due to the health emergency, is finally celebrating its thirtieth edition
The Civic Art Gallery and the former Wholesalers Pavilion of the Covered Market
will host works by international masters, emerging young people
and large site specific installations 

Contemporary art is also back at Villa Olmo with the METAMORPHOSIS
exhibition made on the occasion of this important anniversary
promoted by the Bortolaso ​​Totaro Sponga Foundation

until 18 July 2021

Miniartextil, the historic Como event dedicated to Fiber Art, after the many difficulties and continuous postponements caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, opens to the public and celebrates its thirtieth edition until 18 July 2021 with works by great Masters and site specific installations, set up in the spaces of the Civic Art Gallery and the Wholesalers Pavilion of the Covered Market.

Conceived by Mimmo Totaro and Nazzarena Bortolaso, promoted and organized by the ARTE & ARTE Association in collaboration with the Municipality of Como, since 1991 Miniartextil has brought the evocative visions and creativity of great names in national and international art to Como, alongside those of young emerging artists. The event revolves around the exhibition of 54 small-sized works (20×20 cm), the mini-textiles from which it takes its name, which since 1997 have been flanked by site-specific installations and works by great artists.

For its thirtieth edition, Miniartextil composes an itinerary throughout the city, rediscovering its origins, re-reading a thirty-year history still capable of speaking in the present, and engaging in dialogue with contemporary reality and its artists.

The heart of the project is the Civic Art Gallery in which 54 mini-textiles are exhibited, delicate, ironic, fragile and powerful works, chosen for this edition by a jury chaired by Mimmo Totaro and composed of Paolo Bolpagni, Maria Luisa Frisa, Francesco Franchi and Giovanni Berera .

The mini-textiles are a counterpoint to a retrospective exhibition organized by the ARTE & ARTE association with Giovanni Berera, which puts the masterpieces of the Civic Collections in dialogue with the works of 26 international artists, chosen from those who participated in one of the editions of Miniartextil. Among them, Magadalena Abakanowicz to whom  is dedicated a tribute consisting of a selection of works from the Toms Pauli Foundation in Lausanne, Jeane Lurcat considered one of the masters of European Fiber Art, of which two tapestries from the Musées d’Angers are exhibited, the African artists Joel Andrianomearisoa and El Anatsui, former Golden Lion at La Biennale di Venezia, with the work Seeds.

And furthermore the American artists Monica Teal and Kendall Buster whose works reveal a particular attention to political and social themes, the Korean artist Sun Rae Kim of which small rice paper sculptures are exhibited, Wanda Casaril with the work Map for a imaginary journey also donated to the Bertolaso ​​- Totaro – Sponga Foundation. The path is completed by the works of Giulio Locatelli, Ottonella Mocellin and Nicola Pellegrini, David Oliveira, Josep Grau-Garriga, Angela Glajcar, Alvaro Diego Gomez Campuzano, Giovanna Bolognini, Filippo Avalle, Olga De Amaral and Mimmo Totaro.

At the former Wholesalers Pavilion of the covered market, for the first time loaned to a major cultural event since the years of its renovation, a large installation commissioned by ARTE & ARTE: with YOU ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU SHOULD BE by Stefano Ogliari Badessi, the public is invited to take part in an emotional and interactive experience.Visitors enter a large golden sphere with a diameter of 25 meters, an inflatable made with shopping bags recovered by the artist in 2018 in Shanghai. On the ground, a white blanket made of plastic that wraps the bales of hay from the fields of the Lombard countryside, forms the basis for sculptures made with silks from Como, while tribal eyes float in the air immersed in geometries of light and color.The environment interacts with the viewer and his movements, the space pulsates with lights and sounds, including the beating of the artist’s heart. An invitation to live a moment for yourself and an experience of communion with art.

Stefano Ogliari Badessi – photo Andrea Zanenga 

Miniartextil will be accompanied by the publication of a catalog published by Edizioni Antiga, designed by Alessandro Gori, with critical texts by Giovanni Berera and Paolo Bolpagni.

Miniartextil will be accompanied by the publication of a catalog published by Edizioni Antiga, designed by Alessandro Gori, with critical texts by Giovanni Berera and Paolo Bolpagni.

On the occasion of this important edition of Miniartextil, the splendid VILLA OLMO will also reopen its doors to art by hosting METAMORPHOSIS, a group exhibition curated by Paolo Bolpagni, Giovanni Berera and Sonia D’Alto.

 METAMORPHOSIS collects voices from different eras, formations and cultural origins, but united by a common language, that of thread, of weft, of the use of fabric, or more specifically of weaving, with works by artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Slavs and Tatars, Marwa Arsanios, Nedko Solakov, Ariel Schlesinger and Jonathan Monk, Hans Peter Feldmann, Daniel Buren, Sheila Hicks, Gianfranco Ferroni and many others. The exhibition together with Miniartextil composes a unique cultural path between the city walls and the lake.