Given my profession, I have this “professional quirk” of getting up close to artworks to examine their materials, and only afterward, and sometimes not always, stepping back to appreciate what they represent.
Imagine, then, how I felt at an exhibition dense with artifacts made from the most varied, multiple, and composite materials, like at BIAF! For years, I’ve used a trick: I visit exhibitions with friends who normally work in completely different fields, not strangers to art shows but unaware of art fairs. This gives me the chance to see things “differently than usual.”
This time, on the first Sunday, I was accompanied by my 9-year-old niece, Alessia. Before entering, I made sure she knew that inside the historic Palazzo Corsini, where the exhibition was held, there would be no running, no gesticulating without awareness of the space, but that she could look closely and enjoy the beauty and curiosities to be discovered at each booth.
It was the most fun visit I could have asked for! She observed everything with the innocent curiosity that only children have, talked with several gallerists who were more than happy to provide explanations and stories, and was particularly captivated by both the animal representations, like a study of a bat, and by artworks made of hard stones or mosaics. But most of all, she had a blast interacting with Anish Kapoor’s concave mirror and, even better, with Pistoletto’s reflective painting, sneaking a peek at what the painted woman was looking at!
