Numero 51 Concept Gallery: Emerging East Asian Artists in Milan

Founded in 2022 by art historian Julia Rönnqvist Buzzetti (formerly with Lia Rumma in Milan) and photographer and ex-lawyer Andrea Deotto, Numero 51 Concept Gallery is located at Viale Emilio Caldara 51 in a 1920s building near Rotonda della Besana and BKV Fine Art. The gallery focuses on emerging artists from East Asia, primarily Japan, China, and South Korea, collaborating with Milan's S.C. Artroom and Osaka's Eunoia Gallery. In 2023, it opened with 'We want to turn the body to the brain' by Chinese artist Rinii Fish (b. 1993, Hangzhou), featuring digital bugs from her invented planet M7, which also became collectible NFTs. The gallery's first show, 'Osmofology' (May 12–June 12, 2022), created with S.C. Artroom, explored wagashi (Japanese tea sweets) as design objects, collaborating with Milan atelier Paper&People and evoking Toraya, a Kyoto pastry shop founded in the 16th century. Its current exhibition, 'Trilogy' (through June 2, 2024), in collaboration with Eunoia Gallery, presents works by Jazz Szu-Ying Chen (b. 1990, Taipei), Yuka Mori (b. 1991, Osaka), and Yuka Nishihisamatsu, addressing superstition, identity, religion, and life cycles. Chen blends grotesque and sublime, merging anatomical studies with Nordic and Taiwanese folklore; Mori reinterprets Japanese traditions through painting, blurring subject and background; Nishihisamatsu assembles everyday and traditional objects into sculptures evoking life, death, and rebirth, often featuring the lotus flower.