Reviewing the MiArt, MiaPhoto, and MEGA ArtFairs

As part of our continuing coverage / reviews of art fairs around the world, ArtNomads attended the MiArt, MiaPhoto, and MEGA art fairs in Milan, Italy in April 2024. The following is our review of each of the fairs, and whether they’re worth a visit for the traveler interested in art.

Ahhh Italy. Of COURSE you want to travel to Italy, it’s why you’re reading this article. The questions, as always, are: when to visit Italy, and where to go in Italy, and what to see in Italy?

Milan, Italy: a great art travel destination!

Well if you love to combine art and travel, and you’re planning for an odd-numbered year, you should think about spring in Milan for Milan Art Week. And if it’s an even-numbered year, make it a spring Art Travel Trifecta by including the Venice Biennale, which opens a week later.

The first thing you should know about MilanArtWeek is that it’s actually #milanoartweek, (get with the program – you ARE in Italy) and the second is that it’s largely overshadowed by Milano Design Week, which alone brings over 300,000 visitors.

Which is a shame, because Milan clearly has a great deal of art to showcase, from Renaissance painting and sculpture to contemporary art, but it was just hard getting the info we wanted in advance in order to plan a great trip. We’re here to help.

We only spent two days, having taken the fast train up from Asti to Milano on Friday and returning late Saturday – and we have some regrets about not staying longer. Know that if you’re walking, the distances you have to cover really do cut down the available hours. Still, we got to three fairs, one museum, and a couple galleries in some 28 waking hours on the ground. Sadly, we did not even visit the Duomo or DaVinci’s Last Supper. What is *wrong* with us?!

Well, there was really no way to see the fairs AND any significant number of galleries in just two days. We’ll be back in Milan in June, after the Venice Biennale, for more reporting on the various galleries, museums and Fondazione that really drive the contemporary art scene in Milan. And of course, the Duomo. And hopefully The Last Supper, but tickets are nearly sold out already.

MiART art fair – The big draw!

Our biggest regret is not allotting more time for the anchor event of MilanoArtWeek, the MiArt Fair (aka Fiera Milano).  We arrived right at open at 1130, spent about 3 hours, and initially felt that had been sufficient.

In retrospect, I’d like to have had time to revisit the fair on a subsequent day, for a couple reasons.

Mainly, because it felt *different*.

We have, over nearly 30 years as gallerists, participated in and attended well over 100 contemporary art fairs – but until this weekend, only in the US. As a result, we have certain expectations of what art and artists we will see, and how it will be presented. MiArt did not fit those preconceptions, and as a result, I initially wasn’t feeling it. 

Celebra le differenze!

The difference(s), however, are a good thing. While there was solid contemporary art in most media being shown, MiArt had a heavy concentration of decades-old artwork which initially left me flat (hence the lack of photos). This section, appropriately entitled “Established” (in previous years, it was called “Decades”), was also heavily Eurocentric, with an emphasis on Italian artists. Not a Warhol (or Warhol ripoff -inspired work) in sight. Feels refreshing now, but at the time I felt a bit lost.

What we saw

We particularly noted, with his work being shown at 4 or 5 galleries, bronze sculptures by Arnaldo Pomodoro. While not someone we’ve run across at many fairs, we did recognize his style from numerous public placements in both the US and from our travels.

Another artist we noted present with multiple galleries was Mimmo Rotella; he died in 2006 and we’ve been unable to determine a reason for this resurgence, other than perhaps his connection to graffiti?

At any rate, this eurocentric post-war emphasis is a good thing for us to experience, as it broadens our understanding of world art history (and therefore the art market).

Overall, the tone/tenor of the art fair was more scholarly, more considered. A considerable emphasis seemed to be not on immediacy, but on history… which fits MiArt’s 2024 curatorial theme of “No Time, No Place”.

This is another difference from most US contemporary art fairs; the concept of an overall curatorial theme to a commercial art fair which actually holds meaning and is adhered to by the participating galleries.

While of course the galleries were in Milan to sell, we felt MiArt was less blatantly commercial than many of its Miami counterparts. No Yayoi Kusama, who of course is everywhere else right now… one Damien Hirst. Definitely far less glitz/glam/glossy in-your-face type work than we saw at Context in Dec. 2023.

So, what was missing?

We noticed a definite lack of digital, video or data-driven artwork. This may have also contributed to my impression of the fair as solid, but hardly cutting-edge, despite the emerging galleries being placed right front & center of the entry. IMHO, the “Emerging” section could clearly benefit from the addition of such works. And, honestly, relocation would help too. The crowd was so thick at opening that we were basically pushed through this section without being really able to see much; we had to come back later to really observe the booths (and then reroute *again* in order to leave. Poor flow.)

Photography, of course, was minimally represented, with sister art fair MiArtPhoto being held in a different part of the MiCo convention center complex.

With that, let’s discuss MiArtPhoto.

MiaPhoto Fair- the perfect companion.

We are not generally as drawn to photography as paintings or especially objects, given our history in the craft end of the art spectrum, and so I assumed we’d be in and out in under an hour.

We actually walked the fair for over two hours; the second hour we were practically running!  Here we saw artists, such as Liu Bolin (with a couple excellent examples), whom we normally expect to see in a general art fair.

Curiously, we also saw a number of other, non-photography artworks we would have expected at the main fair, such as a suite of drawings on book pages by William Kentridge (what happened to him?! -he was *everywhere* just a few years ago) as well as digital collage and video pieces. Perhaps these latter are being classified as image capture and therefore photography these days?  

A number of galleries’ presentations went heavy on social / environmental justice issues. Perhaps I missed that subtext at MiArt, but here it was in full force, with powerful artworks by Laetitia Ky addressing women’s issues, images by Anne De Carbuccia calling attention to global warming (did you know that the Presena Glacier in the Alps gets covered with white tarps each year to prevent further summer melt?), and Michele Camicia’s “Jerrycan” suite standing out not just as composed images, but adding forceful content about lack of potable water in Africa.

In spite of there being many historical works presented, we felt MiArtPhoto still had a more consistently contemporary vibe than the main MiArt fair, and we enjoyed it.

Milan Art Week: How to see the fair(s).

Our advice: you should reserve a couple multi-hour blocks across two days for the MiArt Fair to avoid burnout and to really let the subtleties sink in. 

You can enjoy MiArtPhoto separately, either day. The two fairs are housed in the Allianz MiCo convention center, but at near-opposite ends, requiring 10-15 minute walk, outdoors, from one to the other. We had beautiful weather, but this may play into your plans for future editions. 

Of course, you can easily reach the convention center via public transport; Milan has an easy to use and relatively affordable public transport network of buses, subway (Metro) and trams. In fact, there is a metro stop right at Allianz MiCo convention center; tickets were 2.30EUR each ride.

MiArt has just announced the dates for 2025. Tickets are around 15-18EUR each, and you can buy at entry, but BOOK YOUR HOTEL NOW… and we highly recommend you book your art travel to overlap with MilanDesignWeek, as we missed a number of really great art installations and exhibitions designed to complement (and compliment) the launches of the latest in design and furniture. Oh, and the Last Supper tickets sell out months ahead, get those now too!

MEGA Art Fair: The BONUS?

We also hit the MEGA ArtFair, billed by organizers as a sort of anti-commercial fair, a space for the exchange of ideas, of networking free from artworld class constraints, etc. From social media images we’ve seen, people did indeed attend and presumably had a great time; they just weren’t there at 5pm when we showed up. This was clearly the afterparty/mingle hotspot. The fair did feature some interesting work, by emerging-emerging artists, a few of whom might be worth watching for the future.

The very nice thing about this fair was its proximity to Milan’s Naviglia with a tremendous range of bars and restaurants offering apertivi; our visit was thronged, nothing like the casual space Stanley Tucci filmed. But we did have a lovely wind-down drink on the canal, watching both rowers and the setting sun dip into the placid water … a perfect end to a beautiful art-filled Spring day in Italy.