ArtLine Milano is a public art commission of the City Council, it is an open air collection into the public park realized in the area transformation area of CityLife.
ArtLine Milano offers an articulated journey with more than twenty permanent works: 8 of them selected through a competition dedicated to artists under40 (the exhibition took place at Palazzo Reale in Milan between 2015 and 2016) and the others realized by established international artists.
With this initiative, ArtLine Milano aims at spreading art within the city, creating a contact with neighbors, passersby in the park and in general with all citizens. The purpose is to think about art as a resource through which observing reality from new points of view, with a new look.
ArtLine Milano is free and opens 7 days a week in order to underline the importance of public space as a place where the artistic and cultural heritage of the city can be shared.
The artworks are installed starting from 2016 and they constitute a single permanent exhibition, fully integrated with the architectures of Zaha Hadid, Arata Isozaki and Daniel Libeskind, and with the natural evolution of the park of CityLife, designed by the studio of architects Gustafson Porter.
A public programme with conferences, appointments, round tables and workshops will be held to accompany the public during all the project.
The eight artists selected through the international competition are: Riccardo Benassi, Rossella Biscotti, Linda Fregni Nagler, Shilpa Gupta, Adelita Husni-Bey, Wilfredo Prieto, Matteo Rubbi and Serena Vestrucci.
Among the artists invited from curators there are: Judith Hopf and Pascale Marthine Tayou.
Before 1923 this place was a peripherical area and it was a Piazza delle Armi, where military exercices took place. Then the area was bought by the Ente Autonomo Fiera Internazionale di Milano and it became its headquarter until 2006.
In 2004 the fair district starts to move to the new venue in Rho-Pero and the urban area of 240.000 mq becomes the subject of an international tender won by CityLife with a urban regeneration project by Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and Arata Isozaki.
Around the heart of the project, Piazza Tre Torri with its business and shopping district, a public park of 173.00 mq it has been developed, designed by the Gustafson Porter studio, as winner of an international tender, the concept of the park is based on the representation of the landscape of the region (Lombardy) both concerning the morphology and the selection of the botanical species.
In 2014 the Milano City Council decided to enrich the public park with an open air contemporary art collection to Roberto Pinto (as senior curator) and Sara Dolfi Agostini (until 2016). They invited 30 international artists under40 to participate to a competition with a public art project, eight of them have been selected by an international jury.
Other projects were commissioned by the curators to other established international artists.
The exhibition about the competition took place in Palazzo Reale in December 2015 and the curatorial department is joined by Katia Anguelova (for production) and Angela Maderna (for communication, until 2018). Mariacristina Ferraioli (for communication) will take over in 2019.
From 2018 there will be a public programme curated by Cecilia Guida that includes the organization of various activities, such as walks with guided tours, workshops, seminars, book presentations and study days on art in the public sphere aimed at telling the project to the city.
The curatorial team is composed of Roberto Pinto, Katia Anguelova, Mariacristina Ferraioli and Cecilia Guida.
The exhibition about the competition ArtLine Milano. 30 projects for the Park of Contemporary Art, took place at Palazzo Relae in Milan from the 3rd of December 2015 to the 10th of January 2016.
The participating Italian artists are: Alis/Fillol, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Francesco Arena, Riccardo Benassi, Rossella Biscotti, Linda Fregni Nagler, Adelita Husni-Bey, Nicola Martini, Margherita Moscardini, Ornaghi e Prestinari, Alice Ronchi, Matteo Rubbi, Elisa Strinna, Nico Vascellari and Serena Vestrucci; and the foreigners: Maria Anwander, Mircea Cantor, Shilpa Gupta, Eva Kotátková, Maria Loboda, Armando Lulaj, Marie Lund, Haroon Mirza, Marlie Mul, Amalia Pica, Wilfredo Prieto, Jon Rafman, Timur Si-Qin, Rayyane Tabet and Xu Zhen.
All the invited artists proposed a public art project and the jury selected and awarded eight of them. The jury was composed by Charles Esche, Mary Jane Jacob, James Lingwood, Gianfranco Maraniello, Iolanda Ratti, Lea Vergine and Angela Vettese.
The eight awarded artists are: Riccardo Benassi, Rossella Biscotti, Linda Fregni Nagler, Shilpa Gupta, Adelita Husni-Bey, Wilfredo Prieto, Matteo Rubbi and Serena Vestrucci.
