How Cecilia Alemani is redefining art curating

“The way I understand curating is not very formal, not very institutional,”
she says, smiling as we sit in one of the rooms of Palazzo Max Mara, in the center of Milan. “So much so that, at almost fifty, I have still never worked in a museum.”

Born in 1977, Cecilia Alemani grew up in Milan and now lives in New York, where she moved to study curatorial practice at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. She gestures toward one of the images on the office wall. “The one in that photo, back there, is the intersection just near my place,” she says, and, with genuine surprise, the conversation momentarily shifts elsewhere.

That Alemani chose to live in a city that, more than any other, embodies a crossroads of movements, cultures, and people is hardly a coincidence. Her career has always been deeply international. She works “around the world,” of course—but above all within the world itself. “Every project grows out of listening to a specific context and engaging directly with the artists involved,” she explains.

Alemani does not seem particularly interested in talking about herself. She prefers to let the facts speak. And yet, looking at her résumé, it is not easy to know where to begin. From 2012 to 2017, she curated Frieze Projects, the nonprofit platform of the Frieze Art Fair, presenting new commissions by emerging artists alongside reconstructions of historical exhibitions. In 2017 came the curatorship of the Italian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Il mondo magico brought together large-scale, site-specific installations by Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Roberto Cuoghi, and Adelita Husni-Bey, conceived as an immersive, almost ritualistic journey. In 2018, Alemani served as artistic director of the first edition of Art Basel Cities in Buenos Aires. “Buenos Aires, at the time, was already a culturally structured city, ready to host projects of this kind,” she recalls. “Then, two days before the opening, the peso collapsed and an inflation began that I had never seen in my life.” “Cities force you to reckon with their specificities and their problems, often when you least expect it,” she adds. “But it is precisely there that creative energy tends to emerge.”

Cecilia Alemani

The following year, for Art Basel 2019, she commissioned the artist Alexandra Pirici to create a new version of Aggregate for the Messeplatz, in front of the fair. The result was a performative environment involving more than sixty performers who, through gestures and sounds, activated references to disparate forms of cultural heritage, composing a kind of collective time capsule.

The stakes were raised even higher in 2022, when she directed the 59th Venice Biennale, becoming the first Italian woman to hold the position. “I understand and appreciate the responsibility, as well as the opportunity I have been given,” she declared at the time, “and I intend to give artists a voice, creating unique projects that reflect their visions and our society.”

A promise kept with The Milk of Dreams, an edition that takes its title from a book of fairy tales by Leonora Carrington, “in which the Surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly reinvented through the prism of imagination, and where one is allowed to change, transform, and become other than oneself.” It was a Biennale that brought many previously less visible women artists and practices to the forefront, building relationships and resonances between works without rigid hierarchies.

Cecilia Alemani

Alongside major institutional appointments and a sustained commitment to gender issues, Alemani’s work is distinguished by her pursuit of less canonical contexts, from the Santa Fe Biennial in New Mexico to long-term roles such as the exhibition program of the High Line in New York City, which she has directed since 2011: “At the moment, my museum is a hanging garden ten meters above the ground, in the middle of Chelsea.”

“The artist is a complex being,” she explains. “They create important works that are not always shown in the right contexts, or under the right conditions. A large part of my work consists in making possible the work the artist would like to do,” she says—supporting them not only at the moment of exhibition, but also throughout the production phase. When asked for her definition of curatorial practice, she replies: “A curator is someone who facilitates relationships—whether between the artist and an institution, or between the artist and a context. A curator works so that the work can excel, when it has yet to come into being, or continue to excel once it has already seen the light.”

In this sense, for Alemani, the curator is also a storyteller: “When two works or two artists are brought together, it is never by accident. It is a story that poses a question to the viewer. Why are these works together? What are they talking about? In this way, even those who do not know the answer are prompted to reflect, and a stimulated audience becomes a source of productive thought.”

“Art helps us see the world through a different lens and engage with complex issues that we often struggle to recognize or articulate.” Not linguistically, but visually, perceptually, metaphorically: “Through art, we can open up a different register of listening to the world.”

When the conversation turns to her new role as curator of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, the transition feels almost natural. The project brings together many of the issues Alemani has been engaging with for a long time.

“Since the beginning, the award has not focused on the artist’s age, but on their career,” she explains. “When we talk about emerging or mid-career artists, we do not mean this in a generational sense, but in relation to a specific moment in their trajectory, when such recognition can become a turning point. That is where an award like this can truly affect an artist’s work and future possibilities.”

Cecilia Alemani

The Max Mara Art Prize for Women was established in 2005 and has been linked to the company’s history from the outset. Max Mara was founded in 1951 by Achille Maramotti, in an Italy undergoing profound change, at a moment when women were returning to the public sphere and redefining their roles—no longer confined solely to care, but increasingly connected to work, education, and autonomy. In those years, an idea of elegance took shape that was meant to accompany this transformation, grounded in freedom, functionality, and lightness. The award follows this trajectory, carrying it into the field of contemporary art: a project conceived to support women’s work within a system that still tends to offer them less space, fewer resources, and less continuity. “The artist is never an isolated figure,” says Alemani. “She works within a history, a culture, and a political and economic context that profoundly shape both artistic practice and the very possibility of making art.”

That is why the prize is conceived as a pathway. At its core is a residency in Italy, designed to ensure a genuine period of research and immersion. “The artist does not arrive with a fully formed project,” Alemani explains, “but is supported by the institution during a phase of study, coming into contact with cultural practices, traditions, and techniques.” This is one of the aspects that distinguishes the prize from many other awards. “Often there is a cash prize, perhaps a short residency or a study trip, and then the artist is left on their own.” “Here, by contrast, the support is real and continuous and, when necessary, also takes into account the artist’s personal needs, circumstances, and responsibilities.”

Cecilia Alemani

The most significant innovation introduced by Alemani following her appointment is the project’s international expansion. For the first time, the work developed during the Italian residency will leave Europe and be presented in an exhibition in Jakarta, in collaboration with Museum MACAN. “Indonesia is one of the most populous and youngest countries in the world,” Alemani explains. “But above all, Jakarta is a non-centralized context, traversed by a plurality of histories and practices.” It is also home to “a relatively recent art scene,” developed after the end of the Suharto regime, “in which collective work and the community dimension carry structural weight.” “We were interested in a place where a project like this could truly make a difference,” she adds, “and where the encounter between an artist and such a different cultural context could generate something unexpected.”

A choice that marks a clear departure from previous editions of the prize, long tied to London, and that comes at a moment shaped by renewed political, economic, and cultural closures. “These projects serve everyone involved. Myself included,” she concludes. “They require listening, attention, and a certain humility.”
“Common ground is not always immediate, but it can be built. It must be cultivated.”

Opening image: Portrait Cecilia Alemani - curator Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Courtesy Max Mara Art Prize for Women