Cross Roads — Collective exhibition
From 15/09/2023 to 14/10/2023
The gallery is a central space where everything is born: exhibitions, fairs, meetings, new projects and collaborations. A hotbed of ideas and connections that historically sees a plurality of personalities, professionals and non-professionals, from the artistic sector interact within it. More and more often, however, this space is mainly frequented on the occasion of inaugurations and special events that take place there, losing the role of promoter and collective center aimed at discussion and comparison that it has traditionally always held. The group exhibition Crossroads starts from the need to put the gallery back at the center as a crossroads, as a nerve center of exchange, and to bring attention back to the people who frequent it and to the connections that are born within it between artists, curators, gallery owners, collectors and journalists.
Opening: 15 September, 6 – 9 pm, Umberto Benappi Gallery – Via Andrea Doria 10, free entry
On the occasion of Crossroads, professionals in the sector, together with enthusiasts, have been invited to present an artist and his work. The aim of the project is to reconstruct, through these meetings, the steps necessary to create an exhibition, highlighting in particular the human relationships from which the exhibition project unfolds. Artists and “curators” with their different life paths meet in the spaces of the Galleria Umberto Benappi, giving life to a dialogue with many voices, captured through a series of video interviews made for the occasion; in the same way, the works of art on display converse with each other in the exhibition environment of the gallery, which reaffirms itself as a crossroads of new connections in progress.
Artists in dialogue: Elena Bellantoni and Iole Pellion di Persano / Domenico Borrelli and Lisa Parola / Gisella Chaudry and Paola Stroppiana / Enrico T. De Paris and Roberto Mastroianni / Francesca Dondoglio and Olga Gambari / Carlo D’Oria and Monica Trigona / Daniele Galliano and Luca Beatrice / Paolo Grassino and Sofia Manfredi Grassino / Nicus Lucà and Enrico Remmert / Francesco Maluta with Claudia Zunino and Francesco Pistoi / Andrea Mastrovito and Giuseppe Pero / Frédérique Nalbandian and Yvette Bernizan / Piergiorgio Robino and Riccardo Ronchi / Marco Rubiola and Guido Andruetto / Jessica Wilson and Marco Niccoli
Elena Bellantoni
(1975) lives and works in Rome, she is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts L’Aquila and at NABA in Rome. After graduating in History of Contemporary Art, she studied in Paris and London, where in 2007 she obtained an MA in Visual Art at the WCA at the University of Arts London. In 2007 she co-founded Platform Translation Group in London, in 2008 she opened the 91mQ art project space in Berlin, in 2015 she co-founded Wunderbar Cultural Project. Her artistic research focuses on the concepts of identity and otherness using the body as a means of interaction. Words and language become incarnate, they are exploratory devices of the world system that the artist translates through the use of video, photography, installations, sculptures and drawing.
Elena Bellantoni has won numerous residency projects: 2020 ArtTeam Cup Award, in 2018 thanks to Nctm and Arte Studio Legale she won the call for a residency in Belgrade, Serbia; in 2017 The Subtle Urgencies, with Adrian Paci, at the Pistoletto Foundation and ArtHouse, Biella-Scutari, Italy/Albania; in 2016 she was selected by the Soma Mexico Residency in Mexico City; in 2009 As long as I’m walking a residency with Francis Alÿs and the critic Cuauthémoc Medina, curated by 98weeks Research, in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2018 she is among the winning artists of the IV edition of the Italian Council of the MIBACT; in 2019 she presents the book of the entire project at the MAXXI in Rome with a Focus on her work. In 2018 the project Ho annegato il Mare is selected in the Collateral of Manifesta12 in Palermo. The same year she is selected for Gran Tour d’Italie of the MIBACT. In 2014 she wins the special Prize Repubblica.it for the Talent Prize; the project In Other Words, the Black Market of Translation – Negotiating Contemporary Cultures in 2011 wins the NGBK call in Berlin. In 2009 she wins the Movin’up Worldwide of the GAI (Young Italian Artists) from the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers; in 2006 the first prize of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg Kunstpreis Zum Ball-Spiel in Berlin.
Galleria Umberto Benappi
The Umberto Benappi gallery was born from a long tradition of gallery owners who have been present on the art market for four generations.
It deals with modern and contemporary art. It is located in a former artist's atelier inside the historic Corbetta Bellini di Lessolo building, in the center of Turin. It collaborates with national and international galleries and institutions in order to promote monographic and collective exhibitions, making use of the comparison and dialogue with Italian and foreign curators.
On the occasion of the exhibitions, books and catalogues are published accompanied by important critical texts, in order to document and promote the exhibition projects and artists.
For over ten years the Gallery has participated in national and international fairs.
