Raffaella Cortese’s Albisola space: a ‘think tank’ for emerging art collaborations

Raffaella Cortese opened a 12-square-meter space in Albisola Superiore in June 2022, describing it as 'more a think tank than an exhibition space'. The venue, near the Ligurian sea, alternates works from her Milan gallery with collaborations with emerging galleries. In 2023, Fanta-MLN from Milan presented Noah Barker's 'lux principum', a stainless steel light installation with an AI-generated manual. In 2024, Gian Marco Casini Gallery from Livorno showed Clarissa Baldassarri's 'Exposure value', featuring a camera live-projecting the room onto the door. From May 16 to September 26, 2026, the space hosts Triangolo gallery from Cremona with Nicole Colombo's 'Rosario (to the moon and back)', a large rosary of fifty hand-molded black clay and metal powder elements, inspired by the water chestnut seed. The work was produced during a residency at Studio Ernan Design in Albisola. Cortese aims to revive local pride in the area's ceramic heritage from the 1950s-70s, when artists like Lucio Fontana, Asger Jorn, Wilfredo Lam, and Sebastián Matta worked there.