Bergamo Brescia 2023, what are the must-see events?

A large light installation, designed by Objects of Common Interest studio and supported by Confindustria Bergamo, illuminates Piazza della Libertà in Bergamo. The winning project of the “La Città Illuminata” contest launched by GAMeC and the City of Bergamo, aims to express the entrepreneurial vision of the area and its creative fabric with a light sculpture that winds sinuously in a dialogue with the colonnade of Palazzo della Libertà. Lights on is a reconfigurable modular work that opens new contexts by reactivating public space.

An eloquent title, telling of the creative pragmatism of this area, where manufacturing is a central sector. The Sala delle Capriate welcomes 32 Compassi d’Oro, for this exhibition project conceived by DimoreDesign, developed by the Marketing +39 Association and MULTI, with the curatorship of Davide Pagliarini and the patronage of ADI (Association for Industrial Design). The exhibition is presented as a kind of ruby-red wunderkammer of industrial design, created with meticulous care in archival research and layout, which aims to tell the successful story of an excellent tradition.

Bergamo-based Gallery GAMEC’s exhibition program for the current year is full of must-see exhibitions: Salto Nel Vuoto (Leap Into the Void) is the first appointment with contemporary art curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Domenico Quaranta, an exhibition that explores the theme of dematerialization through the investigation of emptiness that artists throughout the decades of the 20th century have pursued. For the summer and through the fall, renowned British artist Rachel Whiteread and Argentine artist Vivian Suter with a vast body of works will fill the spaces of Palazzo della Ragione and the Gallery. Furthermore, the live installation by young performer Chiara Bersani, the video installation by Ali Cherri for Fondazione In Between Art Film, and the long-awaited special project by Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno to close the year, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Meru - Medolago Ruggeri Foundation for Biomedical Research, which will produce the work in collaboration with GAMeC and BergamoScienza.

Among the most anticipated exhibitions of the year, Yayoi Kusama’s celebrated Infinity Mirror Room, entitled Fireflies on the Water (2002) will arrive in Bergamo. This exhibition event, called Infinito Presente organized by The Blank Contemporary Art with the City of Bergamo, and curated by Stefano Raimondi, will be staged in the hall of the Palazzo della Ragione. The exhibition is a unique opportunity to view one of the Japanese artist’s best-known works and will be open to the public from November 19, 2023 to January 24, 2024.

Lovers of Renaissance painting should not miss the opportunity to visit several churches that hold masterpieces from Lorenzo Lotto’s Bergamo period, such as the Church of Saints Bartholomew and Stephen, the Church of San Bernardino, the Church of Santo Spirito, Santa Maria Maggiore, and Sant’Alessandro in Colonna. Among the exhibitions, Lotto Romanino Moretto Ceruti at Palazzo Martinengo unites Bergamo and Brescia in painting between the 16th and 18th centuries. A visit to Palazzo Moroni is also a must, where even the Scalone d’Onore alone is worth a visit. Finally, just outside Brescia is Verolanuova, where the restoration of two Tiepolo masterpieces housed in the majestic Basilica of San Lorenzo was recently completed.

The Finnish artist, who has been making major urban and relational art interventions for many years, proposes two works to strengthen the bond between individuals and communities. After the pandemic, Bergamo and Brescia have become places of research on the theme of rebirth for Kaikkonen, who on this occasion, presents two participatory sculptural installations: Waves of Life at the Former Telephone Exchange building on Via Tasso in Bergamo, and Reaching Light at the Borgo Trento Church in Brescia.

On the occasion of Brescia Photo Festival 2023, there is a rich program of exhibitions and events hosted mainly by the Santa Giulia Museum and MO.CA. - Center for New Cultures. There will be no shortage of other special city locations, such as the Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, where the exhibition David LaChapelle for Giacomo Ceruti, curated by Denis Curti, is underway, part of a schedule of exhibitions paying tribute to the well-known Lombard painter. Also not to be missed is the exhibition curated by Renato Corsini, Things Never Seen. Unseen Photographs at MO.CA. in which 120 unpublished black-and-white photographs by Gianni Berengo Gardin are on display for a reinterpretation of his extraordinary journey from the 1950s to the present.

From April 1 to November 5, 2023, the Brescia Castle, where the Risorgimento Museum Leonessa d’Italia is also located, will host the exhibition The Knots of the Gardens of Paradise curated by LETIA-Letizia Cariello and Giovanni Valagussa. In addition to thirty-five carpets from the Turkestan area, selected from the Zaleski collection, works by artists who have worked with embroidery and weaving such as Alighiero Boetti and Herta Ottolenghi Wedekind will also be on display, along with a site-specific installation by artist Letia-Letizia Cariello including two previously unseen works entitled Beauceant and Aracne.

On Sept. 16 through the streets around the center of Brescia, you can meet Yvan Clédat et Coco Petitpierre in one of their best-known plays, as part of the Teatro Grande season 2023 review. Les Baigneurs, The Bathers, is the title of the performance that recalls a popular subject in modern painting, from Picasso to Cézanne, Seurat to Matisse. The two artists, like two large dolls in bathing suits, will experience the city as if they were at the beach, evoking the well-being of the sea and the sun, to create a sense of awe and estrangement in the audience.

Annamaria Ajmone is a dancer and choreographer, her research is based on the body seen as moldable matter, inhabiting spaces and transforming them into places. Organized by Fondazione del Teatro Grande di Brescia, the artist will present Senza Titolo, a performance that takes on ever-changing forms and sequences and is built in the moment of encounter between movement, space and the audience. Even in terms of the sound environment, there are no elaborations or musical compositions, to give the performance a strength of simultaneity with respect to the chosen space.