The exhibition is promoted by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Beijing, with the support of the Fondazione Italia Cina Art Center, under the direction of Feng Jiao, and is conceived and coordinated by Nuova Artemarea ETS, chaired by Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi, and curated by Ren Jingge. The project brings together nine artists from different countries and cultural backgrounds, presenting 31 works spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, design and multimedia.
The opening took place on 4 September 2026 at 6:00 pm at the Fondazione Italia Cina Art Center in Beijing, and the exhibition is open to the public from 5 September to 4 October 2026.
From “antagonism” to intellectuality
Global Intellectualism stems from the observation of a mode of research that is emerging in contemporary art.
Throughout the twentieth century, from Marcel Duchamp and the redefinition of the art institution to the “social sculpture” of Joseph Beuys, by way of political art, institutional critique and participatory practices, the idea of antagonism long served as one of the main keys to interpreting contemporary art.
In today’s global art system, however, the relationship between artist and society takes increasingly complex forms. Alongside direct confrontation, artists increasingly intervene through thought, knowledge, education and research, contributing to the transformation of the cultural environment in which they work and developing new forms of artistic practice.
It is from this perspective that the exhibition adopts Global Intellectualism as its interpretive key, identifying the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna as a privileged starting point for reflecting on the role of art education as a space for the transmission of knowledge, intercultural exchange and cultural diplomacy.
Nine artists, a network of knowledge
A central role in the exhibition is given to the research of Luca Caccioni, artist and professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna. His practice, grounded in part in the anthropology of art, explores the relationships between human beings, the image, memory and the world. By using ancient Italian manuscripts as pictorial material, Caccioni brings the traces of history into dialogue with the language of contemporary painting.
Aiello Lelio, professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, develops a research focused on matter and on the relationships between matter, language and artistic meaning. Through materials such as ash and the use of various multimedia devices, the artist addresses themes such as identity, memory and time, making matter itself one of the elements through which the meaning of the work takes shape.
The Chinese artists Li Ping and Guo Donglai bear witness to how the Bologna educational experience has extended into Chinese artistic practice. In their work, the encounter with Italian art education intertwines with their own memory, cultural experience and tradition, giving rise to personal languages capable of creating new connections between Italy and China.
Hong Lingling, a Chinese artist trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, has also developed, after her studies, a light, essential and poetic language. Her experience, however, has not been confined to individual practice: the knowledge she acquired in Bologna has also been passed on to later generations of young Chinese artists who have undertaken the same educational path, creating a generational continuity of artistic experience.
The Italian artist Carloalberto Lucioni, who has long worked and lived in China, uses the tempera technique to explore a dimension of inner contemplation and the relationship with the classical tradition. For him, tradition becomes a spiritual force through which to confront the speed and superficiality of contemporary life.
The Iranian artist Mansa Sabaghian starts instead from cultural identity and reflection on the self, questioning the influence of architecture and the environment on individual perception. Her research brings together the experience of Eastern culture and the conceptual and methodological tools acquired through her Italian art education.
Daniele Chabonkin Cinquerrui builds his research on painting and on the study of objects and images capable of crossing time. His practice reflects on the forms of alienation produced by today’s excess of information, proposing a return from visual fragmentation to a more comprehensive vision.
Finally, the Lithuanian artist Sigita Dabulskytė interweaves her own experience of place with her Italian art education, integrating into her research the Lithuanian landscape tradition, the experience of Chinese ink painting and the decorative elements of ceramics. The result is a language capable of building original visual connections between different cultural traditions.
From Bologna to the world: art as cultural diplomacy
The nine artists come from different countries, histories and cultural contexts, but share a network of knowledge formed through the experience of art education in Bologna. Their works do not form a group that can be traced back to a single style: what unites them is rather an ongoing process of learning, exchange, transmission, reinterpretation and creation.
The exhibition therefore does not set out to tell the story of a one-way transmission of an artistic model from Italy to the world, but to observe how knowledge, experiences and artistic languages can cross cultures, transform and take on new meanings in different contexts.
The 31 works on display, created through painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, design and multimedia, thus form a kind of international art laboratory, in which different cultural experiences enter into dialogue.
In this sense, art education goes beyond the simple transmission of technical skills and becomes a concrete form of cultural diplomacy: a process capable of circulating knowledge across borders, fostering mutual understanding between different traditions and, through exchange between generations of artists, turning cultural transmission into a form of shared creation.
Global Intellectualism – The Bologna Art School thus starts from Bologna to question anew the relationship between art, knowledge and cultural exchange, bringing to the heart of Beijing a dialogue that continues to unfold through the works and experiences of nine artists.
Technical data
Title
Global Intellectualism. The Bologna School
Exhibition venue
Fondazione Italia Cina Art Center, Beijing
Opening: 4 September 2026, 6:00 pm
Open to the public: 5 September – 4 October 2026
Organisers and Coordinators
Fondazione Italia Cina Art Center
Nuova Artemarea ETS Association
Institutional support
Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Beijing
Support
Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi, President of Nuova Artemarea ETS Association
Feng Jiao, Director of the Fondazione Italia Cina Art Center
Curator
Ren Jingge
Assistance and Translation
Francesco Tomé
Exhibition set-up collaboration
Ma Jingjing
With thanks to
Roberto Pinto, Professor at the Università di Bologna
Luca Caccioni, Professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna