Intesa Sanpaolo joins the XXVIII edition of miart as Main Partner once again this year. The Bank's lounge area will be hosting the exhibition “I am a force of the past”, four artists selected by curator Luca Beatrice, as part of the international modern and contemporary art fair to be held in Milan from 12 to 14 April.
The long-standing link with miart bears witness to Intesa Sanpaolo’s constant cultural support of the territory, with the aim of consolidating Milan’s centrality in the national and international modern and contemporary art world and offering the city an additional boost to economic, cultural and civic growth and development.
THE PROJECT
Starting from the famous words of Pier Paolo Pasolini contained in Poem in the shape of a rose (1961 – 1964), I am a force of the past presents the work of four artists who use images of tradition and invites visitors to reflect on the role of history in contemporaneity. To talk about the present and reflect on the future, the artists chosen for this exhibition put the most consolidated visual strategies to the test in a variety of ways. Looking to the great masters, Chiara Baima Poma reinterprets the legends of popular Italian culture that marked its origins. In a mystical universe that combines reality and imagination, time is translated into a language that reconciles the sacred and the profane, antiquity and the present. Luca De Angelis' art is characterised by a constant relationship between figure and nature, themes typical of classical painting. Taken from fashion magazines and blogs, his characters have angular profiles and powerful muscles reminiscent of the paintings of Felice Casorati and Ubaldo Oppi. Having grown up in the workshop of his father, iconographer Ismaele Nones, his aim is to make current issues interact with techniques and languages drawn from the iconographic world. Themes such as sexuality, contemplation and alienation emerge from the holiness of the subjects. Influenced by the lesson of Caravaggio, Nicola Verlato finds his points of reference in the great masters of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. His work combines mythological subjects with elements from the science-fiction and digital worlds.
THE BIOGRAPHIES
Chiara Baima Poma
Born in Cuorgné (Turin) in 1990, she lives and works in Las Palmas (Gran Canaria). After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin, she moved to London, where she founded the art collective Pacific Social Art Club (PSAC). In 2022, her work was exhibited in the collective Accessible Art Show at the Black White Gallery, London and in the solo shows Pacific Social Art Club no. 1 and Pacific Social Art Club no. 2 at Green Alley Studios, London. That same year, she won the second edition of the Global Talent Art Prize. In 2023, she participated in the collective Embodied Knowledge at the Ely Centre of Contemporary Art, New Haven and presented her first solo show in Italy, Specchi per le allodole, at the Simondi Gallery in Turin.
Luca De Angelis
Born in San Benedetto del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno) in 1980, De Angelis lives and works in Milan. He graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino and subsequently from the Biennio di Arti Visive. In 2013, he obtained the Francesco Fabbri Foundation Award and participated in a Painting Practices residential programme in Nogardeo al Torre (Udine). The next year, he won the Combat Under-35 Award. In 2016, his drawing Untitled was acquired by the Galleria Civica of Modena. In 2021, he received the Level 0 Award sponsored by the Coppola Foundation of Vicenza. His recent solo and collective exhibitions include Portrait of a Man, Remont Gallery, Belgrade; Dropout, curated by Claudio Libero Pisano, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome; Messinscena, curated by Umberto Palestini, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino; La stagione straniera, Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza; Nadir, Galleria Annarumma, Naples, and VOLTI, curated by Luca Beatrice, Villa del Balbianello, Como.
Ismaele Nones
Born in Trento in 1992, Nones lives and works in Turin. In 2018, he graduated in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice. In 2021, he received the Casarini Due Torri Award in the Painting Under 35 section and participated in the collective Chi illumina la grande notte at the Cappella di San Rocco, Mombarcaro (Cuneo). The following year his work was exhibited in three solo shows: Ismaele Nones, curated by Lunetta 11, ERCO, Milan; Forme ibride, curated by Gabriele Salvaterra, Lasecondaluna, Laives (Bolzano), and Buona Fortuna Ribelli, curated by Lunetta 11, Borgata Lunetta (Cuneo). In 2023, he was a finalist for the 22nd Cairo Award; he was listed in the Giornale dell’Arte among the most promising under-30 artists in Italy; he participated in the collective exhibition Pittura italiana oggi, curated by Damiano Gullì, Triennale, Milan, and presented a solo show at the Untitled Art Fair in Miami (Florida). In 2024, he presented the solo show Chiara confusione at the Galleria Niccoli, Parma.
Nicola Verlato
Born in Verona in 1965, Verlato lives and works in Rome. After studying lute, classical guitar and composition at the conservatories of Verona and Padua, he graduated in Architecture from the University of Venice. In 2004, he moved to New York, where he taught at the New York Academy. In 2011, he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for seven years. His work has been exhibited and praised around the world. His solo and collective exhibitions include Pittura italiana oggi, curated by Damiano Gullì, Triennale Milan (2023); Hostia, Baths of Diocletian, Rome (2022); The Merging: beyond the end, Postmasters, New York (2020); Once Upon a Time in America, Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen (2018); American Trilogy, Matucana Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile (2016); Juxtapoz 20 Years Under the Influence, Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles (2015); Percorsi riscoperti dell’arte italiana, Mart, Trento and Rovereto (2012); Collaudi, curated by Beatrice Buscaroli and Luca Beatrice, Italy Pavilion – 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); Peripheries Become the Center, Prague Biennale 1 (2003); Escape, Tirana Biennale 1 (2001), and Ultime generazioni, XII Quadriennale of Rome (1996). His works appear in the collections of Mart of Trento and Rovereto, the George Lucas Museum in Los Angeles and MUSAC in Salamanca, Spain.