#WorldArtDay: Covid Has Not Put Art on the Side. Certainly Not at Bocconi

Hundreds of contemporary art works of all sizes, materials and techniques. Paintings, sculptures, light and fabric installations, wall paintings, photographs. Hundreds of Italian artists, from Mauro Staccioli to Franco Mazzucchelli, Mimmo Paladino and Giuseppe Spagnulo, and some of the most appreciated foreign artists in the world, including Yannis Kounellis, Andrei Molodkin, Liu Bolin and Lawrence Carroll. Inaugural events, from edition to edition, which mixed various artistic paths with live performances of classical, jazz and rock music to accompany the journey through the works on display. Moments of dialog with the artists, photo competitions on art themes, and even a live episode of Caterpillar, the Rai Radio 2 program.

Since December 16, 2009, when Bocconi University opened its doors to over 3,000 people for the opening night of the first edition of Bocconi Art Gallery (BAG), the social sciences university has also been a point of reference for contemporary art. Thanks to a network of collaborations with institutions, gallery owners and collectors, many indoor and outdoor spaces of the campus in fact comprise a gallery open not only to students and faculty but also to the many visitors who frequent it in non-Covid times.

On the other hand, Bocconi hosts a research center dedicated to the world of art and more generally to culture and creative companies, ASK, Art, Science and Knowledge, the economics and management laboratory of institutions and artistic and cultural initiatives. The University also offers an educational path that goes from the BSc program in Economics and Management for Art, Culture and Communication to the MSc in Economics and Management in Arts, Culture, Media and Entertainment, or the post-experience Master in Arts Management and Administration.

And right in the week in which the University, now back in the "orange zone", reopens its physical classrooms to welcome students with the resumption of teaching in hybrid mode (digital and face-to-face), Bocconi Art Gallery celebrates #WorldArtDay by making the voice of art heard loudly.

While waiting to be able to launch a new edition, BAG today offers a total of 105 works by 52 artists in the corridors and halls of five different buildings on the campus. Among these, we range from the great shroud by Gianluigi Colin to the trilogy of Nadia Fanelli, the paintings on paper and wood by Marco Gastini and the mixed techniques of Luca Lombardi. There are works in plexiglass by Maria Teresa Ortoleva, resins on wood by Robert Pan, polyester by Giò Pomodoro, steel by Shigeru Saito and marble that looks like wood by Valeria Vaccaro. They all find a place in the ensemble of styles and materials. And then there are the oils on canvas by Valentino Vago, the iron and aluminum of the works of Grazia Varisco, the neon lighting of Vedovamazzei or the photos of Ulderico Tramacere. Often, they are huge works whose language is color, like the wall paintings by Marco Casentini, the set of acrylics by Vittorio Corsini and the 13 pieces by Ivan De Meis, or monochrome like the folded canvas by Enrico Castellani and the acrylics by Amedeo Sanzone and Rodolfo Aricò.

The works on display are on loan for use, but in these 12 years, thanks to the generosity of collectors and artists, Bocconi has in fact gathered its own collection, which today includes 11 works owned, including the Cancellation of the public debt by Emilio Isgrò, to the triptych by Sonia Costantini, from Sergio Fermariello's Warriors, to Massimo Kauffman's Clinamen, Arthur Duff's Fight-Flight, Elio Marchegiani's Great Chessboard, Alessandro Mendini's Futuro wall painting, Lorenzo Petrantoni's Knowledge That Matters, Mario Raciti's works, Mario Arlati's Power of Color and Arnaldo Pomodoro's Column.