Artissima Returns to Turin With 180 Galleries and a Sharper Sectional Map
Turin’s Oval will once again become a dense cross-section of the contemporary art market when Artissima opens its 33rd edition in late October. The fair will bring 180 galleries from 35 countries to the former Olympic speed skating facility, which has served as its home since 2010.
Luigi Fassi returns as director for the fifth year in a row, and this edition arrives with a slightly expanded roster: 180 galleries, up from 176 last year. Thirty-three galleries are taking part for the first time, a sign that the fair continues to refresh its base even as it maintains a recognizable structure.
That structure is one of Artissima’s defining features. Fassi has organized the fair into distinct sections, each with a specific curatorial logic. New entries highlights first-time participants, including 17 galleries identified as emerging. Monologue/dialogue is reserved for experimental galleries presenting one or two artists. Art editions gathers nonprofits focused on prints and multiples. Present future and back to the future are single-artist sections devoted, respectively, to emerging artists and pioneers of contemporary art. Disegni is dedicated to monographic booths centered on drawing.
The result is a fair that asks visitors to read the booths not simply as commercial spaces, but as a sequence of propositions. The exhibitor list spans Rome, Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo, Seoul, Bogotá, and beyond, reflecting the fair’s broad geographic reach and its continued appeal to galleries working across the primary and secondary markets.
For Turin, Artissima remains more than a calendar fixture. It is a carefully staged annual survey of how galleries want to present themselves now — and how they hope to be read in a crowded international field.
