Palazzo Bentivoglio Becomes the Underground Club of Bologna Art Week
In the beating heart of Bologna Art Week, Palazzo Bentivoglio suddenly became the night’s center of gravity. Not just the most coveted party of Arte Fiera, but a true collective acceleration: low lights, deep bass ricocheting off the underground vaults, bodies packed tight, and that electric charge that only ignites when art and club culture decide to collide.
The trigger—beyond the city’s art fair—was CC, the new exhibition by Michael E. Smith (on view through April 26), unveiled precisely in the palace’s hypogeal spaces during Arte Fiera. A spare, taut, silent journey—before music turned it into a continuous vibration. Smith’s installations, made of scraps, minimal presences, and perceptual tension, seemed to breathe with the crowd, as if the space itself had fallen into the rhythm of the night.
Then the party took over. Matteo Pit’s DJ set pushed everything forward, laying down a hypnotic soundtrack for a cross-section of artists, curators, gallerists, insiders, and curious night owls. Many familiar faces from the contemporary art scene were there, in an atmosphere that felt more like a cultural rave than a vernissage. Among the guests: Giulia Cenci, Luca Lo Pinto, Davide Ferri, Valerio Berruti, Franco Noero.
For a few hours, Palazzo Bentivoglio stopped being just an exhibition venue and became a living organism—history, sculpture, music, and humanity compressed into the same heartbeat. Proof that contemporary art, when it sheds its museum posture, can still light up the night. And that Bologna, at least for one evening, danced right at the center of the system.
Text: Germano D’Acquisto
Photos: Alessio Ammannati
