ITALIA PAZZA

Three visions, three residencies, three projects that will interpret collective identity in a contemporary and bold way. Chekos'art, Tomoko Nagao and Giulia Pompilj are the artists selected through the Artist Open Call launched by Fondazione Italia Patria della Bellezza in collaboration with Galleria Rossana Orlandi, Robilant, Casa degli Artisti and Cottura Creativa.

Chekos'art

Chekos'art is the stage name of Francesco Ferreri. An urban artist originally from Lecce. He has been active for over twenty years on the street art and urban art scene, with a career spanning Italy and reaching international contexts. His artistic language stems from graffiti writing and has evolved into a recognisable style: large-format portraits criss-crossed by optical patterns and geometries that distort the figure and bring it to life. Chekos'art’s ‘canvas à porter’ brings the same artistic language that Chekos'art creates on walls to the artist’s bag. A face — an icon of classical or contemporary Italian beauty — intersected by optical patterns and the energy of graffiti.

Tomoko Nagao

Tomoko Nagao has been living in Italy for 20 years and has developed an artistic vision in painting, sculpture and graphic art that draws on the masterpieces of Western art history. In particular, she focuses on the icons of Italian art – from Leonardo’s Mona Lisa to Michelangelo’s Pietà, and Tiepolo’s frescoed ceilings – which she reinterprets in a Japanese pop style. The artist’s ‘canvas à porter’ is inspired by Sandro Botticelli’s ‘La Primavera’, an icon of Italian beauty that will be ‘Tomokised’. Since this masterpiece is among the most overused images in contemporary society, Tomoko – opposed to this method of collective appropriation which, paradoxically, destroys the very work it seeks to preserve – aims to refocus attention on the details of the masterpiece and isolate the figures of Venus, Flora, and above all the Three Graces.

Giulia Pompilj

Giulia Pompilj is an Italian designer and artistic researcher whose work explores the biological, historical and social relationships within ecosystems through a practice that weaves together scientific research, craftsmanship and visual storytelling. She has worked with international research centres including Inkaterra Asociación (Madre de Dios, Peru), Mater Iniciativa (Moray, Peru) and the FAO (Rome). Specialising in ethnobotanical research, she conducts fieldwork in ecosystems affected by the consequences of the Anthropocene, translating ecological knowledge and territorial memories into textile works, installations and material archives. Natural dyeing is central to her methodology: each pigment retains the climatic, mineral and environmental traces of the territory from which it originates, transforming the fabric into a sensitive archive of the landscape. For ITALIA PAZZA, Giulia Pompilj focuses her research on Hieracium australe, a rare plant that grows exclusively on the walls of
Milan’s Castello Sforzesco and embodies a unique story of resilience, adaptation and urban biodiversity. Its recent identification as an endemic species, recognised by the Natural History Museum of Milan, prompts an urgent reflection on what survives silently in our cities and on the ecological value hidden within everyday landscapes.

THE AIM OF THE CALL

ITALIA PAZZA was created to bring art back into everyday life, into people’s lives.
The second edition of this special national Artist Open Call is now underway, inviting artists to devise an original creation for the Fondazione Italia Patria della Bellezza. The project is a collaboration with Robilant and several key figures from the contemporary art and design scene: Casa degli Artisti, Galleria Rossana Orlandi and Cottura Creativa.

At the heart of the project is not a simple object, but a ‘canvas à porter’: a canvas to
wear, conceived as a space for research, experimentation and vision. Art thus becomes a moving object, capable of entering everyday life.

Each canvas à porter is born as both a creative and a philanthropic gesture: a work that
concretely supports the Foundation’s cultural activities.

The artist residencies

The open call will select three artists, who will take part in three 30-day artist residencies at Casa degli Artisti, Galleria Rossana Orlandi and Robilant.

During the residency, each artist will develop their own creative project and produce 50 ‘touché’ pieces, personalised according to their artistic research.

Each ‘canvas à porter’ will thus become a small artist’s edition, capable of telling a story, stimulating curiosity and making art tangible and accessible.

The theme: shared identity

The theme of the open call is our  country's shared identity, understood as beauty in its broadest sense. Not just formal harmony, but also imagination, ethics, territory, care, and a sense of community.

A beauty that also encompasses a dimension of creative ‘madness’: that quintessentially Italian ability to step off the beaten track, transform limits into possibilities, and generate unexpected visions.

A project at the intersection of art, business and culture

The first edition featured Mariangela Bombardieri, Sara Ricciardi and Mattia
Sugamiele, who interpreted the canvas à porter as a symbolic device, bridging folklore and contemporary art, memory and experimentation.

With this new open call, ITALIA PAZZA establishes itself as a platform for dialogue between art, business and contemporary culture, offering artists a space for research, production and
visibility, and the public the chance to support art through a simple, everyday gesture.