I’m just back from a one-day workshop at H-Farm’s, where I’ve been invited, among many others who work in the contemporary art’s field, in order to plan strategies to relaunch Art Verona Fair. Interesting? Yes… But my biggest thought goes to Italy. Contemporary art market and, more generally, the art fairs market is just another expression of how Italy does not have what we can call “network building” capability, reducing the art system to a messy hodgepodge made of small organizations that are not able to cooperate (or even just speak to each other). The same story happens in any field (entrepreneurship, politics, and so on). What’s the art fair in Swiss? Just one, Basel, and it’s the most important art fair in the world. What’s the city for contemporary art in UK? Just one, London. And what about Italy? There’s a plenty of competing small organizations. We have La Biennale (Venice). MiArt (Milan). Rome with its fair. Bologna, Artefiera. Torino, Artissima. Bergamo, BAF. Verona, Art Verona, and so on. And while we are here, wasting time competing for our little land, the world goes on and Italy keeps on loosing competitiveness on the international market. We are keep on making but we are not going to make it. Taxation is killing the market. Artists are looking to flee abroad. International buyers don’t even look at Italy. And galleries close.