Crac Gallery opens in Terni with mission to bring contemporary art to industrial city

Chiara Ronchini, a 37-year-old gallerist with twenty years of experience, has opened Crac Gallery in Terni, Italy, a city better known for its steel industry than contemporary art. The gallery launched in October 2017 with the project GRANDENEROGRANDEBIANCO, a series of monthly solo shows dedicated to essential simplicity. Artists featured so far include Molino&Lucidi, Giulio Zanet, and Martina Merlini, each creating site-specific works. On February 24, 2018, the gallery will open its fourth exhibition, Orizzonte Artificiale by Matteo Ceretto Castigliano, featuring iron works that reference the steel mills of Terni and Turin, the artist's birthplace. Ronchini, who studied at DAMS in Bologna and worked at galleries on New Bond Street in London, including Max Wigram, returned to Terni after a stint at a gallery in Parma and a curatorial role at Caos Centro Arti Opificio Siri. She describes opening the gallery as a lifelong dream and a mission to bring avant-garde art to a struggling working-class city. Future exhibitions include Sebastiano Dammone Sessa, Ester Grossi (recently back from a residency in New York), and Graphic Surgery from the Netherlands, with a new season planned for October 2018.