Art City Bologna 2025 dedicates edition to historic city gates

The 2025 edition of Art City Bologna, titled 'Le Porte della Città', will focus on the city's ten historic gates. Running from February 6 to 16, 2025, the event coincides with Arte Fiera (February 7–9, with a preview on February 6). Directed for the eighth consecutive year by Lorenzo Balbi, the festival will transform Bologna into an open-air gallery. Contemporary artworks will be displayed along an eight-kilometer route connecting the gates, engaging with the city's history, social changes, and morphological transitions. The gates, built from the 1300s onward, are symbols of civic life, having witnessed battles, celebrations, and revolutions. The project aims to revitalize them as symbols of passage, migration, and transformation. Banca di Bologna, which funded a restoration campaign of the gates between 2007 and 2009, is supporting the initiative. Its director general Alberto Ferrari expressed pleasure in continuing collaboration with MAMbo. The visual identity, designed by Giulio Ferrarella of Al mare.Studio, uses essential forms and optical effects in a red-dominated palette to evoke the city's warm atmosphere. A call for proposals for public and private projects is open until December 15, 2024, via the official website. The detailed program will be announced later.