What is art week?
As Bologna is a city with a lot of galleries and art events I was pleasantly surprised to find there was a dedicated Bologna Art Week too. It was from 17th to the 26th January and was a collaboration between a number of organisations including the Municipality of Bologna, MamBO (Modern Art Museum Bologna) and Arte Fiera. This year was the 8th Art week and saw more than 57,000 pieces exhibited[1].
There were hundreds of events across a wide variety of galleries, non-profit, artist run and unconventional spaces and included a “White night” on January 26th. Usually, in Italian, a white night means a night where you are not able to sleep. However, happily this “White night” is where galleries and museums were open until midnight. This was to allow people who struggle to get to galleries and museums during traditional opening hours a chance to go. I think this is a great idea and I don’t know how many galleries or museums do this, in other places, but I will definitely be keeping my eye out.
Bologna Welcome
To find out what was happening in Art Week, we turned to our trusty friend the Bologna Welcome site. As we had limited time when we were both free we wanted to maximise the bang for our buck. So, rather then go to several different events in separate locations we decided to go to one big event at Bologna Fiera, which is a massive conference centre on the outskirts of Bologna.
At the end of last year we decided to get Bologna Welcome cards. This is a card provided by the Bologna Welcome centre and with it you can access many galleries, exhibitions and attractions either for free or at a discount. We bought annual cards but they also do short term cards for tourists and visitors. Check out their site for full details (link above). We were expecting to get a discount at Bologna Fiera, but on the day we were ushered through for free just by flashing the cards.
Arte Fiera
We drove to the exhibition because we knew it was on the other side of town, but when we arrived we discovered there was a free shuttle bus from the centre, which we should have researched better. However, we arrived at the venue in time for a spot of lunch at the Eataly pop up and then went into the exhibition. There were two enormous halls hosting this exhibition so to begin with we were a little overwhelmed and unsure where to start. Both halls had exhibition spaces organised by Gallery with a sign to indicate the gallery name and location. There was a mixture of Italian and International galleries. I will shush now and let the art do the talking. As usual terrible photos by me, good ones “borrowed” from Al.
Gallery spaces and labels 
Can you spot the egg 
To get more info and photos check out their site Arte Fiera
Art Week Bologna 2021
It looks like its all systems go for the 9th
Bologna Art week in 2021 and I would recommend checking it out if your visit coincides
with Art Week or if you are lucky enough to plan your trips around art events.
[1] ‘ART CITY Bologna 2020 – Bologna Agenda Cultura’ (Agenda.comune.bologna.it, 2020) <http://agenda.comune.bologna.it/cultura/artcity> accessed 21 February 2020