Frieze Art Fair 2009

As every year, October in London, as for contemporary art, means Frieze Art Fair, one of the most interesting and, luckyly we would say, controversial exhibitions of contemporary art all over the world. Between the 15th and the 18th October, Regent's Park hosted some of the most recent 'art sensations', as concerns particularly the British and London scene.

Main theme of the exhibition was the financial crisis which hit the world so heavily in the recent period. This year's innovation was the opening of a movie section, which effectively opens up the celluloid's world to a substantial recongition in the sometimes hostile world of art. Besides the famous and usual names of Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, who was the protagonist of last year's edition since in that same period he was named 'the most importan artist in the world' by the magazine ArtReview - this year relegated to position 48 in the same chart - worth of attention was, as each year, the Emergent Artist section, in which seven 'beginners' presented their first original work of art.

Despite the 'traditional' debate on Hirst that involves this exhibition, Frieze has now become a solid and rich event in the contemporary arts calendar for the quality of the works presented, which nevertheless can be as well object of legitimate discussion. And, whatever the opinion, this already seems to be good news for art in general, especially in this age of 'crisis'.

Alessandro Gandini

Cultural Studies Italia

After a few weeks of 'beta version', Cultural Studies Italia, webpage for the Italian Cultural Studies, is officially ready to start. This project makes an ambitious attempt to create a 'cultural link' between the well-established Anglo-American Cultural Studies and their academic tradition, and the multifaced reality of the Italian Cultural Studies, whose development as an academic discipline is more recent and "new".

The purpose of this page, which works in double version, Italian and English (see link on top right of the page) - is to rapidly grow and establish as a 'meeting place' for the discipline in Italy and the UK, together and in sinergy with the Italian Universities which have already launched specific academic courses in Cultural Studies as well as with Italian journals such as Studi Culturali and Agalma.

Each instituition, single researcher and of course everyone simply interested in this topic is invited to read and participate to this blog, by simply writing at culturalstudiesitalia@gmail.com.