Event Details
Thu, September 21, 2017
18:00 – 19:00
VILLA LA PIETRA
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Firenze, Italia
Who constitutes the “general public” for exhibitions and installations of contemporary art in an increasingly globalized world? How do geography, space, and the specific contingencies of place inform curatorial practices?
How effective are professional curatorial studies programs in preparing future curators? What specific problems are attendant upon the curating of contemporary art in Italy, and how might they be addressed?
Featuring some of Italy’s most distinguished curators of contemporary art, this panel will take on these and other issues, as well as entertain questions from the audience.
Ara Marjian, Professor of Italian, New York University; Chiara Bertola, Curator, Fondazione Querini Stampalia; Luca Massimo Barbero, Curator, Fondazione Giorgio Cini.
Featured Biographies

Ara Merijan
PROFESSOR OF ITALIAN, NYU
Ara H. Merjian (moderator) is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at New York University, where he is an affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History, as well as Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is the author of Giorgio de Chirico and the Metaphysical City: Nietzsche, Paris, Modernism (Yale University Press, My 2014), as well as the forthcoming volume, Against the Avant-garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Art and Politics, 1960-75. He writes criticism for Artforum, frieze, and Art in America.

Chiara Bertola
CURATOR, FONDAZIONE QUERINI STAMPALIA
Chiara Bertola is curator of the contemporary art project “Conservare il futuro” Fondazione Querini Stampalia di Venezia since 1999. In 2015 she founded and curated the Premio Furla for young Italian artsists, and served as artistic director for the Hangar Bicocca in Milan, 2009-2011. A co-curator of the Venice Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, and a curator if Rome’s XV Quadriennale, she has curated exhibitions dedicated to Joseph Kosuth, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ilya Kabakov, Boris Mikhailov, Giulio Paolini, Kiki Smith, Georges Adeagbo, Mona Hatoum, Christian Boltanski, Marisa Merz, and Gianikian-Ricci Lucchi, among others. Her volume on the role of the curator, Curare l´arte (2008), was published by Mondadori/Electa, and she most recently curated exhibitions of Giovanni Anselmo e di Elisabetta Di Maggio at the 2017 Venice Biennale.