Section hosting established galleries presenting works united by a common thread.

Section for galleries with an activity focused on promoting international artists, whose exhibition project – designed ad hoc – is aimed at creating a dialogue between photography and other media such as sculpture, installation, painting and video.

Domenico De Chirico [Independent curator]
Domenico de Chirico is an independent curator from Italy. Born in Bari, Italy in 1983, he lives and works in Milan. He graduated with honours in Foreign Languages and Literatures with a final dissertation dealing with Comparative History of Art in Eastern European Countries (with a particular focus on Dan and Lia Perjovschi). From 2011 until 2015 he was a professor in “Visual Culture” and “Trend Research” at Milan’s European Institute of Design (IED). He collaborates with a number of international artists, galleries, institutions, art fairs, art prizes, and magazines worldwide. He has been artistic director at DAMA Fair, Turin, Italy (2016-2019). He was also a visiting tutor at Goldsmiths, University of London (2018) and a member of the Network Event for Young Curators, LISTE – Art Fair Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2018). Upcoming projects and researches: Swab Barcelona Contemporary Art Fair, Barcelona, Spain (committee member); Roma Arte in Nuvola: Fiera internazionale d’arte contemporanea, Rome, Italy (advisor); MIA Photo Fair, Milan, Italy (guest curator); BIENVENUE Art Fair, Paris, France (curator); Prisma Art Prize, Rome, Italy (curator); Swiss Institute, Rome (visiting curator). Upcoming exhibitions in various venues.

Project management by Marialuisa Pastò [independent curator, Art editor]

The “Reportage Beyond Reportage” section invites the viewer to take a journey through images among the indelible and in some cases poignant stories of reportage. A path that winds between past and present, underlining the changes that have taken place in the world of photography with the digital revolution and the advent of real-time news. The selected galleries work with artists ranging from documentary photography to photojournalism, using both color and black and white, telling stories of life, war, migration, freedom, hope, natural and climatic disasters, sports and sense of sharing. These photographers target to the same purpose: to testify, tell, reveal, make us aware of what is happening in the world and help us understanding the complexity of the world. The section aims to highlight the different aspects that reportage has developed today. No longer just a testimony of terrible, unusual or extraordinary events but a powerful witness of a normal story, which happens in everyday life and which becomes unique. A contemporary reportage that goes beyond the traditional reportage and, considering the impact of images proliferation, enormously increases its importance as a visual medium. Every story, event or gesture becomes immortal, inviting us to remember that we must not forget.

Emanuela Mazzonis di Pralafera [ Independent Curator]

Based in Luxembourg and born in Rome, she graduated cum laude in Art History at La Sapienza, Rome and got a Master Degree in Art Management at Accademia di Brera, Milan. After a first experience in the world of art galleries, working for Francesca Kaufmann, Milan and Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York; she worked for the François Pinault Collection in Venice from 2003 to 2011. From 2012 she started working as freelance curator on different exhibition projects as Addio Anni ’70 in Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2012; The sea is my Land, Artists from the Mediterranean Sea at the Maxxi Museum in Rome and the Triennale in Milan, FRAC, Marseille 2013 -2015 – 2016; Year After Year – opere su carta dalla UBS Art Collection,GAM, Milan, 2014; Don’t shoot the painter – dipinti dalla UBS Art Collection, GAM, Milan, 2015; Me, Family at Mudam, Luxembourg, 2020. She has published essays in different publications as “Artists Interviews” for the Luxembourg Art Week, 2022; “Stronger than memory and weaker than dewdrops – Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron”, exhibition cat., 2021; “Me, Family – Portrait of a Young Planet”, exhibition cat., DCV, 2020; “Don’t shoot the painter – dipinti dalla UBS Art Collection”, exhibition cat., Skira, 2015; “Year After Year – opere su carta della UBS Art Collection”, exhibition cat., UBS, 2014; “The sea is my land – artisti dal Mediterraneo”, exhibition cat., Feltrinelli, 2013; “Rudolf Stingel e Franz West” in M. Pugliese, B. Ferriani “Monumenti effimeri. Storia e conservazione delle installazioni”, Milano, Electa, 2009, pp. 243-255; Explanatory texts on the artists exhibited in “Italics”, exhibition cat., Venezia, Electa, 2008; Short biographical texts on the artists exhibited in “Sequence 1”, exhibition cat., Venezia, Skira, 2007; “The François Pinault Collection, A Post-Pop Selection”, exhibition cat., Venezia, Skira, 2006.

The death of Mahsa Amini, the young Iranian Kurdish woman who died in September 2022 while in the custody of the morality police, marked a crucial moment in Iranian history. Creating a strong exhibition, made of obstinate gazes, is more necessary than ever today, to raise awareness of the battle Iranian women are waging for the world.
This is the starting point for the project Underskin, Stories from Iran, which will debut during MIA Fair 2023. Strongly desired by Fabio Castelli and curated by Rischa Paterlini, it will present a selection of works by Iranian artists, both emerging and established, resident in Iran or abroad and represented by galleries from different continents.
The Iranian realities of AG gallery and Mah art gallery from Tehran will take part in the project and they will be flanked by works from the Roya Khadjavi Projects of New York and from the Milanese gallery Podbielski Contemporary. The exhibition will also include the Florentine participation of La Portineria and London-based Janet Rady Fine Art with the Iranian Photography Now project.
We will be pleased to host works by Shadi Ghadirian, M. DK and Nava Derakhshani, Tahmineh Monzavi, Gohar Dashti, Sepideh Salehi, Armin Armirian, Ali Zanjani, SHIVA KHADEMI, Maryam Palizgir and Bibi Manavi, among many others. Thanks to their works, all of the utmost quality, a space will be created to emphasize the importance of never changing rights into privileges. Zoya Shokoohi‘s performance and the screening of the short film Power to the People, by Rahim Milani, will also contribute to the space. A section of the MIA Fair will also be reserved for the polyhedral Sarah Doraghi and her photographic series focusing on the ‘forbidden’ face of Iran.
Underskin will also offer a series of collateral events alongside the exhibition: on Saturday 25th March two Masterclasses will be held, in which prominent personalities from the world of culture will reflect on the key role of art in the delicate Iranian situation. Among others, Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat, MAXXI director Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, curator Ilaria Bernardi, artist Sarah Doraghi, collector Roberto Spada and journalist Francesca Mannocchi will be speaking. The screening of an excerpt from the docufilm We Iranian Women written and directed by Sabina Fedeli and Anna Migotto and produced by 3D PRODUCTIONS will introduce the talk.
Visitors will have the opportunity to further explore the themes of Underskin thanks to a podcast, produced in collaboration with Giornale dell’Arte and available on an on-demand platform and the main broadcasting channels (Spotify, Apple Podcast, Speaker) after the end of the exhibition.
After the event, the miramART association by Grand Hotel Miramare in Santa Margherita Ligure will support an artist, rewarding him or her with the acquisition of one of the works forming part of the project, which will become part of their collection.