Luca Bertolo. l'hésitation

Luca Bertolo (Milan, 1968) studied computer science at Milan’s Università Statale, then painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 1998. He has lived in São Paulo, London, Berlin and Vienna. Since 2005, he has lived in a small mountain hamlet in the Apuan Alps. He has exhibited in public and private spaces, including GAM in Turin, MART in Rovereto, Aalst Netwerk in Aalst, MAN in Nuoro, Fondazione del Monte in Bologna, Fondazione Prada in Milan, GNAM in Rome, Centro Pecci in Prato, Nomas Foundation, Rome; Collection 176/Zabludowicz, London; MACRO, Rome; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; SpazioA, Pistoia; Arcade, London/Brussels; Marc Foxx, Los Angeles; Galerie Perrotin, Paris; Pierogi Gallery, New York. His first anthological exhibition took place at CEAAC in Strasbourg in 2024. Some of his articles, published in magazines and blogs, were included in the book I baffi del bambino. Scritti sull’arte e sugli artisti (Les Moustaches de l’Enfant. Écrits sur l’art et les artistes), Quodlibet, 2018. He edited the Italian edition of James Elkins’s On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art, Johan & Levi, 2024, and recently wrote the afterword to the Italian edition of Raphael Rubinstein’s book Pittura provvisoria. Una svolta nell’arte contemporanea (Provisional Painting. A Turning Point in Contemporary Art), Johan & Levi, 2022. He has taught painting at the Bologna Academy of Fine Arts since 2015.

Cecilia Canziani is an independent curator and art historian. She is co-founder of the contemporary art research center IUNO, in Rome, with Ilaria Gianni, as well as of the artist’s book publishing project Les Cerises, in Paris. She holds the Chair of Phenomenology of Contemporary Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in L’Aquila, is a member of the College of the Doctorat d’Intérêt National I cycle AFAM at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples and is a contract lecturer in Contemporary Art at the Master in Art History of the University of Rome Tor Vergata. She has organized exhibitions in Italian and foreign institutions and galleries, and has contributed texts and essays to numerous catalogs.

Ilaria Gianni is an independent curator, art critic and teacher. She is co-founder of IUNO, a research center for contemporary art, and of the Magic Lantern Film Festival, an event dedicated to the links between the visual arts and cinema. She has organized exhibitions and research projects at institutions including Palazzo delle Esposizioni, MACRO, MAXXI, Galerie Nationale, FOROF, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome), GAMeC Bergamo, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce in Genoa, Fondazione del Monte in Bologna, Matadero in Madrid, Loop MOA in Seoul, and John Hansard Gallery in Southampton. From 2016 to 2023, she was guest curator at the American Academy in Rome. Between 2009 and 2016, she was co-director of the Nomas Foundation. She has collaborated with ARCOmadrid (Opening section in 2018 and 2019), Artissima (Present Future section from 2019 to 2021), and between 2015 and 2017 she co-founded the independent art fair Granpalazzo. She teaches at John Cabot University, IED (Rome), RUFA (Rome) and Naba (Milan). Over the years, she has contributed texts to numerous catalogs and magazines.

Elena Volpato, born in Venice in 1973, is an art critic and curator at GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin, where in 1999 she launched Italy’s first public collection of artists’ videos. She expanded the museum’s collection of artists’ books in 2017 and launched a collection of artists’ drawings in 2024. She has organized numerous group exhibitions of contemporary art, accompanied by critical publications, mainly in the GAM spaces. She has also organized monographic exhibitions by artists such as Ian Kaer, Martha Rosler, Paolo Icaro, Luigi Ontani, Eva Marisaldi, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Flavio Favelli, Maria Morganti, Michele Tocca at GAM, and Luca Bertolo at CEAAC in Strasbourg. She is currently preparing “Dietro l’opera”, an exhibition featuring a dialogue between Giulio Paolini and Luca Bertolo at Madrid’s IIC in March 2025. She has published numerous essays on various themes and artists in contemporary art, as well as monographic studies devoted to the work of several artists. The most recent is dedicated to Salvo’s conceptual painting, published in Io sono Salvo, by Nero Edizioni, with the support of the Italian Council of the DGCC. She has published several articles in Antinomie magazine since 2023. She was art editor of Saturno, Fatto Quotidiano ‘s weekly cultural supplement from 2011 to 2012. She has lectured on contract at the University of Turin, the NABA in Milan and the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna. She lectures on contemporary art themes and supervises contemporary art acquisitions at Turin’s GAM.

Davide Ferri (Forlì, 1974) lives in Rome. He is the artistic director of Arte Fiera in Bologna and a professor of museology at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. He curated the ‘Pittura XXI’ section at Arte Fiera from 2019 to 2025. He has collaborated as a curator with Palazzo De’ Toschi – Banca di Bologna and the Fondazione Coppola in Vicenza. Since 2012, he has been the curator of the Art section of the Ipercorpo theater festival.

He has curated numerous exhibitions and projects in galleries and contemporary art museums, including : Peggy Franck, In a Naked Room, Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna, 2025 ; Hm, He, Ha (with Elena Volpato) / Luca Bertolo, Manuele Cerutti, Pesce Khete, Michele Tocca, Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza, 2024 ; Patrick Tuttofuoco, Abbandona gli occhi, Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna, 2024 ; Quadri come luoghi, an exhibition across five venues organized for Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture, 2023 ; Bettina Buck, Finding Form, Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna, 2023 ; Italo Zuffi, Fronte e retro (with Lorenzo Balbi), MAMbo Museum and Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna, 2022 ; Markus Schinwald – Misfits, Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza, 2020 ; Le realtà ordinarie, Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna, 2020 ; Neo Rauch – Rosa Loy, La Torre, Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza, 2019 ; Solo figura e sfondo / Courtesy Emilia Romagna, Arte Fiera, Bologna, 2019 ; Afro. Pensieri nella mano, San Domenico Museums, Forlì, 2015 ; Tutta l’Italia è silenziosa, Villa Massimo – German Academy, Royal Academy of Spain, Brazilian Embassy, Polish Institute, Russian Center for Science and Culture, Rome, 2015 ; Franco Guerzoni – Nessun luogo, da nessuna parte. Viaggi randagi con Luigi Ghirri, Triennale di Milano, 2014 ; La figurazione inevitabile. Una scena della pittura oggi, Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci, Prato, 2013 ; Sentimiento Nuevo (with Antonio Grulli), MAMbo Museum, Bologna, 2011.