Federica Galloni on Italian Contemporary Art and Urban Peripheries

Federica Galloni, Director General of the Directorate General for Contemporary Art, Architecture, and Urban Peripheries, discusses the achievements and future plans of her office. Since 2015, with a budget of €42 million, the Directorate has launched prizes, competitions, censuses, research projects, and supported artistic productions. The Italian Council project, with a total allocation of €3 million over two years, funded 34 projects from 180 applications across 50 countries, and will continue in 2019. New prizes include the Moscow Prize for curators and the Cape Town Prize for artists, complementing the New York and Berlin Prizes. The Grand Tour d'Italie study visit, now in its second edition, connects 18 Italian artists with international curators. In 2019, the Directorate is developing architectural quality guidelines with the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ministry of Environment, and the National Council of Architects. Collaborations with AMACI include the 14th edition of the Contemporary Day and the RAAM online archive. Urban regeneration initiatives such as Periferia Intelligente, Creative Living Lab, and Prendi Parte! have allocated about €1 million. Regarding the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, curators are invited to select one to three artists, a policy that may evolve.