MIA PHOTO FAIR, 130 exhibitors AT THE 8TH EDITION

The international art photography #fair presents 130 exhibitors, including 90 galleries (37 from outside Italy, double last year’s figure), with the support of Main Sponsors BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas and Lavazza and of Sponsor Eberhard & Co. 

It also offers a full cultural programme, including an exploration of psychoanalysis and collecting, with the keynote lecture by Massimo Recalcati, as part of the new Art and Science format.

At last, MIA Photo Fair!

From 9-12 March 2018, The Mall in the Porta Nuova district, Milan, will once again host to Italy’s international art photography #fair, devised and directed by Fabio Castelli and Lorenza Castelli, now in its 8^th edition.

MIA Photo #fair, with the Patronage of Regione Lombardia, of the Città Metropolitana di #milano and the Comune di #milano, and support by Main Sponsors BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas and Lavazza and by Sponsor Eberhard & Co., is for the first time being presented with a coordinated image, commissioned to an artist: the South African Siwa Mgoboza (Cape Town, 1993), who was selected in partnership with Lagos Photo Festival. 

MIA Photo #fair will be showcasing a series of interesting new developments and projects presented by the exhibitors, that will be a total of 130 this year, including 90 galleries (37 from outside Italy, double last year’s figure). 

These figures confirm how far the fair’s credibility and professionalism has travelled beyond national borders, proving that its high quality has gained international recognition, with galleries from Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Greece and Israel in attendance, not to mention those from overseas (USA, China, Singapore, Argentina). 

Applications were assessed by the scientific committee, made up of Fabio Castelli, Gigliola Foschi, Roberto Mutti, Enrica Viganò.

For the seventh consecutive year, the relationship between #miaphotofair and BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, Main Sponsor of the #event, continues. Once again for 2018, a jury will present the BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas Award to artists taking part in the #fair and exhibiting alongside the galleries that represent them. The finalist works will be posted on @bnl_cultura, the BNL Instagram account dedicated to art and photography. The winning work will become part of the bank’s artistic assets, which include some 5000 works to date. BNL is committed to the themes of Diversity & Inclusion, and it pays homage to female photographers by exhibiting, within its own area of the #fair, photographs by Marie Bovo, Silvia Camporesi and Rori Palazzo, who have enriched the BNL Collection with their diverse, original artistic variations. Guests at the BNL exhibition area will also be met by a #fair guide who will be on hand to show them around the selection of works by female photographers chosen by curator Emanuela Mazzonis. 

Lavazza is partnering with #miaphotofair again, having been involved since the very beginning. For its eighth edition, Caffè Artistico Lavazza will speak through the images of the 2018 Calendar "2030: What Are You Doing?", an artistic mouthpiece for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, (SDGs), established by the United Nations to make our planet a more sustainable place by 2030. The project, based on a creative concept by Armando Testa, was produced by Platon, a photographer and storyteller renowned the world over for his shots of the most influential world leaders, business magnates and entertainment icons. 

This time he has focused his lens on 17 sustainability ambassadors, portrayed in Platon’s typically simple black and white: these men and women are concretely committed to building a fairer world in environmental, social and economic terms. They include chef Massimo Bottura, American actor Jeremy Renner, the defender of the oceans Alexandra Cousteau, Carlo Petrini the founder of Slow Food, alongside tennis champion André Agassi and Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the UN Sustainable Development Network.

Partner Eberhard &Co., the Swiss luxury watchmaker, has been supporting special projects at MIA #fair on the topic of archives since 2014. Thanks to its valuable support, the first edition of the Open Archives Prize will be presented this year, with the patronage of Rete #fotografia and IO Donna (the Corriere della Sera’s women’s magazine, from publisher RCS Mediagroup). The project was created in collaboration with AFIP International – Professional Photographers Association, Professional national  Photographers Association TAU Visual and association e GRIN –National Iconographic Editors Group, all of whom are members of the Rete #fotografia network. 

The prize was awarded by a jury made up of Fabio Castelli, Renata Ferri (IO Donna – the women’s magazine of Corriere della Sera), Laura Gasparini (photo archive at the Panizzi Library in Reggio Emilia) and Lucia Miodini (Communication Study Centre and Archive, University of Parma), and it was bestowed upon the Archivio Carla Cerati. 

The Open Archives Prize consists of funding provided by Eberhard & Co. to support activities aimed at the conservation and safeguarding of the winning archive, and also includes the gift of a Perfection V850 PRO Scanner, donated by Epson. 

In addition, as part of the project two honourable mentions were assigned, to the Fondazione Gian Paolo Barbieri and to the Paola Mattioli archive, both of which will receive a Perfection V850 PRO Scanner generously donated by Epson. 

The #fair will also be hosting the second edition of the RaM Sarteano Prize, which developed out of a collaboration between #miaphotofair and the City of Sarteano (SI), to select artists among those participating in Proposta MIA section, who will be invited to have their works included in a group exhibition to be held from July-September 2018 at the Rocca Manenti.

The scientific committee for the Prize will consist of Fabio Castelli, Francesco Landi the Mayor of Sarteano, and by the curators Roberto Mutti, Gigliola Foschi and Enrica Viganò.

For the second consecutive year, IQOS will be at the #miaphotofair with a lounge, which this year will house “Faces & Lights”, an innovative project specifically designed for IQOS by the international artist Antoine Le Grand, who is best-known for his extraordinary portraits of celebrities. 

The public can also get involved in a performance project, with portraits taken by Settimio Benedusi for HP. Settimio Benedusi will also take part in a round table, along with Oliviero Toscani, as part of the cultural programme.  

MIA Photo #fair is a reality always looking for news to offer its audience. Even this year there will be numerous interesting projects for the history of photography, such as that presented by the Jörg Maaß Kunsthandel gallery in Berlin (with American historical photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Robert Adams, Robert Frank, William Eggleston and Man Ray and Europeans like Andreas Feininger and

Helmut Newton up to Gilles Lorin), by Spazio Damiani in Bologna with Hiroshi Sugimoto, Joel Meyerovitz, Larry Fink, by Contrasto Galleria di #milano with great masters such as Mario Giacomelli, William Klein, Sebastião Salgado, Ferdinando Scianna, by Photo & Contemporary from Turin with Luigi Ghirri, Mimmo Jodice, Gabriele Basilico, Giovanni Gastel, by Suite59 in Amsterdam with André Villers and Edward Quinn, by the Galerie Frederic Got from Paris with Annie Leibovitz, Harry Benson and Steve McCurry.

As regards original projects you will see the unpublished work Joie de vivre by Letizia Cariello, hosted by the stand of the Galleria Massimo Minini from Brescia, the project by Jorge Miño, curated by Massimo Scaringella and presented by Ungallery of Buenos Aires, those of the Berlin Semjon Contemporary with Gerda Schütte and Galerie Wichtendahl with Nicole Ahland and the one by the Belgian Atelier Relief gallery, which leads to the encroachment of photography from two-dimensional borders with photographic works that become sculptures in the interpretations of the artists George Byrne, Matthieu Veunot, Gustav Willeit, Serge Leblon, David Uzochukwu, Karel Fonteyne. We also report Kahmann Gallery in Amsterdam with the Dutch duo Schilte & Portielje and the South African Koto Bolofo, as well as the project between photography and video by Vincenzo Marsiglia of the Boesso gallery in Bolzano.

The works of artists linked to specific geographical areas will be brought to the attention of the public: the Focus Hungary curated by Artmarket Budapest, with 4 galleries from Budapest: Várfok Gáleria - with the artist Peter Korniss - TOBE, Inda Gáleria and MyMuseum, and also Mizerak Foundation from Ozd.

Of particular note among the many exhibitions on display is that of the new photography gallery Still Young, Milan which sets out to support young artists between the ages of 18 and 25 and also acts as a cultural promoter. The gallery will be showing the works by Gaia Squarci with a series of photographs about the island of Stromboli (Stromboli, Iddu); Marta Giaccone with a project about Procida (Ritorno all’isola di Arturo) and Carlo Alberto Giardina (Finnycar). The Art D2 gallery, Milan, will be presenting a solo exhibition on Mimmo Dabbrescia; AnzenbergerGallery from Vienna is to stage a group exhibition of artists including Katie Kalkstein, while Fifty Dots from Barcelona will be exhibiting works by César Ordoñez and Irene Cruz. 

Another exhibitor worth mentioning is Flux Laboratory, Geneva, which will present a personal exhibition by Aurélie Mathigot, including an installation project created especially for the occasion, and a side #event in the city held at the historic premises of Bag - Bocconi Art Gallery in Via Sarfatti. 

Kourd Gallery in Athens will exhibit works by Costantinos Sofikitis and Petros Sofikitis, Lele Gallery in Shanghai will present Guan Yiming and Liu Weihua, Magic Beans of Berlin with the Korean Seungmo Park together with Tom Hoops, Franziska Stunkel and Valentina Murabito, Photo 12 Galerie from Paris with Marshall Vernet and Kacper Kowalski, Podbielsky Contemporary from Berlin with Shadi Ghadirian, Thomas Jorion and Spazio Nuovo gallery project with Edouard Taufenbach and his tribute to the famous private collection of original vernacular photographs on the theme of the body and the family of the director Sebastien Lifshitz. Boxart Gallery from Verona will exhibit an offer of important historical authors such as Hermann Nitsch and Mario Schifano, up to contemporaries, national and international, like Mauro Fiorese, Franco Fontana, Gao Brothers and the unpublished works of Liu Bolin.

Bel Air Fine Art of Venice will propose Antoine Rose, Christian Voigt and Cecile Plaisance, mc2gallery from Milan with Casper Faassen, Patricio Reig and Justine Tjallinks.

Ever since the first edition of #miaphotofair, one of its most hotly-anticipated events has been Proposta MIA, the section dedicated to independent photographers chosen by the scientific committee, and presented to gallery professionals and the general public.

Notable among them is Graziella Vigo, one of Italy’s best-known photographers abroad, who has been celebrated with many photographic exhibitions, from New York to Moscow. After a long period spent away from Italy she is now making a major comeback and will be exhibiting 2 projects at #miaphotofair. The first is titled "PORTRAIT", and features portraits of famous celebrities; the second, "VERDI ON STAGE", depicts extraordinary moments captured during performances of Verdi operas in the world’s greatest theatres, starting from La Scala. Also, the well-known Swiss director and multimedia artist Beat Kuert, with a previously unseen photographic project; and Edilio Livio Alpini with his works in movement which depict matter, developing a connection between art and physics. 

This year the #fair has a particularly full cultural programme. Among its various offerings are the meetings about psychoanalysis and collecting, which are part of the new format based on the relationship between Art and Science, curated by Chiara Agagiù, with contributions from lecturers, researchers and critics such as Massimo Recalcati, Stefano Ferrari, Mimmo Pesare and Giovanni Fiorentino.

Other notable events in the cultural programme are: 1) The colletion for two sessions during which journalist Sabrina Donadel will be interviewing couples of collectors who are bound together not only by love, but also by the passion for photography; 2) Estetica e Cultura, a conversation on how photography as a medium has changed in photo-journalism and advertising, in which Edward Rozzo and Mario Cresci will debate the aesthetic value of photographic images for commercial use; 3) the lecture by Pino Musi and Antonello Scotti, who will analyse several auteur of photography books in which text and images interact to create unimagined connections.

While on the topic of books, a whole new look has been designed for the Publishing area, with exhibitors selected by the curator Magali Avezou of Archipelago Projects, London; the area will bring together international publishing houses, independent publishers and special bookshops. 

MIA Photo #fair 2018 received the Patronage of the Lombardy Region, of the Metropolitan City of Milan and the Municipality of Milan and thecontribution of the Main Sponsors BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas and Lavazza,  Sponsors Eberhard & Co., of the iQOS Partner and of the IULM University, the Technical Sponsors Kartell, Ciaccio Arte, Hotel Principe di Savoia and the Media Partners Arte, AD, 100 Words Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, Artforbes, Art Africa Magazine, Artfacts.net, Artprice, Artribune, Gente di #fotografia,  GUP Magazine, The Fashionable Lampoon, Photography is Art, PHROOM, # 59 magazine, Espoarte, Haute Photographie Magazine, Il Giornale dell'Architettura, Il Giornale dell'Arte, Juliet, The Elephant.

LIST OF EXHIBITORS

5 Continents Editions, Milan, 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery, Milan, Admira, Milan, Archivio Fotografico Italyno, Busto Arsizio, Galleria l'Affiche, Milan, L'Agence à Paris, Paris, France, Alidem - L'arte della #fotografia, Milan, Antonia Jannone Disegni di Architettura, Milan, AnzenbergerGallery, Vienna, Austria, ART D2, Milan, ARTESPRESSIONE, Milan, ATELIER RELIEF, Brussels, Belgium, Azzardo Factory, Milan, bArt, Rome, Bel Air Fine Art, Venezia, Valeria Bella, Milan, Roberto Bernè, Legnano, Galleria Blanchaert, Milan, BLINDARTE, Milan, Boesso Art Gallery, Bolzano; Boxart, Verona, Caielli Fine Art, Daverio, Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting, Milan, Contrasto Galleria, Milan, Riccardo Costantini Contemporary, Turin, Courcelles Art Contemporain, Paris, France, da.ga.llery, Piacenza, Spazio Damiani, Bologna, Die Mauer Arte Contemporanea, Prato; Fabbrica EOS, Milan, Fifty Dots, Barcelona, Spain; FL GALLERY - Federico Luger, Milan, Flux Laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland, Galleria Paola Forni, Bologna, Galerie Frederic Got, Paris, France, Galerie Goutal, Aix-en-Provence, France, Galleria 13, Reggio Emilia, Galleria Federica Ghizzoni, Milan, Galleria Lambretto Factory, Milan, Galleria Paola Colombari, Milan, Gilda #contemporaryart, Milan, GVF Gallery, Milan, Mario Giusti HQ - HEADQUARTER, Milan, Heillandi Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland, IAGA #contemporaryart, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Imago Art Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland, Immagini Gallery, Singapore, Singapore, Inda Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, Institut d'Estudis Baleàrics, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Isolo17 Gallery, Verona, Kahmann Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland, Kourd Gallery, Athens, Greece, Lele Gallery, Shanghai, China, Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin, Germany; MAAB Gallery, Milan, Jörg Maaß Kunsthandel, Berlin, Germany, MADE4ART, Milan, mc2gallery, Milan, MAG - The Art of Magazine Photography, Amsterdam, Holland, Magic Beans, Berlin, Germany, MILAN ART & EVENTS CENTER, Milan, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Mizerak Foundation, Ozd, Hungary, MLB Maria Livia Brunelli, Ferrara/Porto Cervo, MyMuseum, Budapest, Hungary, Nuova Galleria Morone, Milan, Galerie Nardone, Brussels, Belgium, Officine dell'Immagine, Milan, Passaggi Arte Contemporanea, Pisa, Photo & Co, Turin, Photo 12 Galerie, Paris, France; Podbielsky Contemporary, Berlin, Germany, Raffaella De Chirico Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Galerie Jean-Louis Ramand, Aix-en-Provence, France, Semaphore, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Semjon Contemporary, Berlin, Germany, Shazar Gallery, Naples, Spaziofarini6, Milan, Spazio Nuovo, Rome, Stamberga Art Photography, Milan, Still #fotografia, Milan, Still Young, Milan, Suite 59 Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland, TOBE Gallery, Budapest, Hungary, TRAFFIC Gallery, Bergamo, Ungallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Várfok Galéria, Budapest, Hungary, VisionQuesT 4rosso, Genova, Italy, Ward-Nasse Gallery, New Jersey, USA, Wichtendahl Galerie, Berlin, Germany, Aste Bolaffi, Turin, GuruShots, Tel-Aviv, Israel, TAU VISUAL, Milan

PROPOSTA MIA: Niccolò Aiazzi, Italy, Edilio Livio Alpini, Italy, Gabriele Corni, Italy, Michael Crawford, USA, Miranda Gibilisco, Italy, Paolo Grassi, Italy, Beat Kuert, Switzerland, Lucrezia Roda, Italy, Edward Rozzo, Italy, Ulderico Tramacere, Italy, Graziella Vigo, Italy, Maria Cristina Vimercati, Italy, Stefano Zardini, Italy

PUBLISAHERS (list to date): 

Akio Nagasawa, Tokyo, Japan, AnzenbergerGallerybookshop, Vienna, Austria, Archipelago, London, UK, Artphilein Editions / Choisi Bookshop, Lugano, Switzerland, Crowdbooks, Livorno, Italy, Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich, Switzerland, Danilo Montanari Editore, Ravenna, Italy, Gente di #fotografia, Modena, Italy, Henry Beyle, Milan, Italy, IF Libri, Milan, Italy, Komiyama, Tokyo, Japan, La Fabrica, Madrid, Spain, Libreria Martincigh, Udine, Italy, Massimo Fiameni, Milan, Italy, MB Arte e Libri, Milan, Italy, Obiettivo Libri, Milan, Italy, Origini Edizioni, Livorno, Italy, Postcart Edizioni, Rome, Italy, Rorhof, Bolzano, Italy, RVM Magazine, Rome, Italy, Vittorio Scanferla, Milan, Italy, Witty Kiwi, Turin, Italy