350 sqm, plus an additional 80 sqm classroom for the gallerist in Lucca from 1973 to 2018. It opens with Bertozzi & Casoni and with an exhibition of a very young “son of art”.

The new space of Claudio Poleschi with an exhibition by the artists Bertozzi & Casoni (Giampaolo Bertozzi and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni). This is the new space of the historic gallery that played in Lucca from 1973 to 2018 and which today launches a new course in the small state, the third smallest in Europe, between Emilia and the Marche. “I have had many friends in San Marino for a long time and since it is no longer on the “Blacklist” “, explains Poleschi, “I thought I’d benefit from a job. My gallery benefits from this country, where the quality of life is really good, and – why not – where I can also take advantage of a lot of advantages and for me, this is fundamental. Many galleries have moved to London, Switzerland or other countries, but I preferred not to stray too far from loved ones ”.

POLESCHI IN SAN MARINO. THE NEW GALLERY

It will be located in the building of the Banca di San Marino and will spread over 350 square meters, divided between 150 used as exhibition space and the remaining between warehouse, offices and an environment of about 80 square meters, always designed for exhibitions. “We were also lucky enough to find a dozen stalls for cars adjacent to the gallery, which honestly doesn’t hurt “, Poleschi continues, who adds, regarding the context: “here art is to be built and I will certainly do my part. Furthermore, art is concurrent… Let’s not forget that in the 60s and 70s there was also a Biennale in San Marino, which generally followed the year in which the Venice Biennale was held ”.

THE BERTOZZI & CASONI EXHIBITION

The inaugural exhibition is dedicated to the duo Bertozzi & Casoni, for some time in the gallery stable. For the occasion, the two, who use ceramics (their land is a great ceramic tradition such as the nearby Faenza) as an expressive language able to distinguish between life and death, between nature and man, present the works produced during the last two decades. This anthology, which sees them for the first time in San Marino, also includes the work Composition 14 of 2009, a short translation of the intervention in the Italian Pavilion, then curated by Luca Beatrice and Beatrice Buscaroli at the Venice Biennale of the same year. There is no shortage of works from 2020 and 2021. The “classic” still lifes of the artists are flanked by tributes to Gauguin, van Gogh, Morandi and Arcimboldo, in a sort of hall of fame. The exhibition closes the circle, and the family tradition continues Contact from Zeno Bertozzi, twenty-year-old son of Paolo, newly graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna who presents his latest works, opposing the glittering enamels of his father, a gaunt mark calcified in the plaster. The Bertozzi & Casoni exhibition is the first of a program that promises to be full of events. “What will I do? “, Poleschi explains, “I will go on with the exhibitions. I will do a work on the artists of the Nineties, a period that is now a bit “abandoned”. So that’s a difficult job, but I have lived through those years in the first person, so I feel ready and full of energy to be able to start this new adventure ”.

– Santa Ribbon