italiano

Mirada Art Gallery - Learning to look

Mirada means "look" in Spanish: this word also echoes with the meaning of the Latin root "miror" which means "to be amazed". The Latin people were experts in looking; they had no less than five different verbs to describe the act of looking.

Mirada desires to suggest ways of looking, visual sensitivity, impressions.

The A ssociation was formed in 1997, but over the years it has changed form and substance. From an emphasis mainly on setting up and creating museum and exhibition routes, it has moved on to editing activities, mainly in the field of comics, drawing and young artists.

Since the year 2000 it has worked by special agreement with the Municipality of Ravenna, for which it is responsible for all the activities related to the GAI ( Giovani Artisti Italiani or Young Italian Artists), managing the competition, exhibitions and promotion of the young artists of the territory.
This agreement has made it possible to form a database containing more than 200 names of artists in the Province of Ravenna, available in paper form and accompanied with photographs of the works of the artists who took part in the RAM competition. Many galleries all over Italy, but also private companies such as Hera, have made use over the years of the material collected by the Association for exhibition projects or to contact the artists. The office of the 'Young Artists' is inside the gallery.

The activities and events organised by Mirada are many, all characterised by an effort to combine ethics and aesthetics, an effort centred on artistic experiences found in the street, produced independently, and which together draw energy from drawn lines.

Over the years of activity the Mirada Association has acquired an international reputation for its innovative methods, for its ability to predict themes, authors and styles in the world of comics and graphic art. It has also become a multi-disciplinary laboratory that has not only organised and promoted exhibitions but also conferences, seminars, concerts, exhibition projects for third parties, and also activities directed towards solidarity such as in the case of the Parada Foundation of Bucharest.  

In 2 006 the Mirada Art Gallery opens with the ambitious goal of becoming a centre for the collection, dissemination and promotion of drawing and the comic in Italy. Aimed at the general public, the gallery also aims to sensitise museums and institutions to the difficult question of what to purchase in this field. Public collections in Italy no longer invest in art in the form of lines drawn on paper.

Obviously the editorial activities of Mirada cannot be lost: plenty of space will be given to the young artists of the territory and the authors that have always been a part of the collective inguine.net, and Mirada will continue its visual enquiries of the innovations in the field of graphic art and also web design.

In this sense 'looking' is understood as different ways of narrating a story: this is the basic objective of Mirada's design.