Lucca Art Fair Celebrates Its Tenth Edition at the Real Collegio
Updated: 4 days ago
Let’s Get Lost: Get Lost to See Again
25–27 september 2026, Real Collegio, Lucca
From 25 to 27 September 2026, Lucca Art Fair returns to the historic spaces of the Real Collegio in Lucca for its tenth edition. The fair brings together 49 Italian and international exhibitors across four sections — Main Section, Art Projects, Independent and Editor — presenting a wide-ranging selection spanning modern and contemporary art, experimental practices and independent publishing. Lucca Art Fair is organised by T.O.E. Art Fair in collaboration with Blob Art ETS, with the patronage of the Municipality of Lucca, the Chamber of Commerce of North-West Tuscany and Confindustria Toscana Nord.
The 2026 edition is shaped by Let’s Get Lost, an invitation to lose oneself as a conscious act, capable of opening up new perspectives and ways of experiencing the world. The theme draws inspiration from Chet Baker and his connection with Lucca, where he was imprisoned for a period in the early 1960s. This episode becomes the symbolic starting point for a broader reflection on getting lost as a generative and transformative condition. Drawing on Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarisation, the project invites us to suspend the automatic habits of perception and restore our attention to what familiarity tends to make invisible.
The intimate scale of the fair and the architecture of the Real Collegio, in the heart of Lucca’s historic centre, give tangible form to this invitation. The exhibition unfolds through rooms, cloisters and passageways, encouraging dialogue with gallerists and giving visitors the opportunity to spend time with the works, return to them and discover unexpected connections between the different proposals. In the Main Section Rooms, the layout introduced in the previous edition is confirmed, with spaces connected in pairs. This continuity in the exhibition design encourages dialogue between the spaces and guides visitors through a more fluid experience.
“The tenth edition is not only a milestone, but also an opportunity to reflect on the kind of art fair we want to build,” says Paolo Batoni, Director of Lucca Art Fair. “Lucca Art Fair does not aim to be a large art fair on a smaller scale: it chooses a model that is more selective than expansive, more relational than dispersive, and consistent with both the city and the galleries and organisations taking part. In an increasingly fast-paced system, we want to create the conditions for visitors to spend time with the works and to encounter something they were not necessarily looking for.” This vision informs the selection of exhibitors and fosters dialogue between artistic practices from different generations.
“For the tenth edition, we have chosen to consolidate the fair’s exhibition programme, prioritising the quality and distinctiveness of the proposals,” continues Paolo Batoni. “The selection brings emerging and mid-career artists into dialogue with established historical figures, with particular attention to galleries committed to the primary market and artistic research. We want to strengthen Lucca Art Fair’s identity as a platform for discovery, capable of offering collectors different perspectives and unexpected opportunities for encounter. At the same time, we continue to preserve the connection between past and present, spanning a broad historical horizon: from twentieth-century experiences to the most recent languages of contemporary art.”
The Main Section, featuring twenty-nine galleries, brings together established historical figures, mid-career and emerging artists across painting, photography, sculpture, installation and conceptual practices. Alongside the Italian galleries, the international presence includes Centro de Edición Galería from Buenos Aires, Galeria Richard Vanderaa from Celrà and Prototip Gallery from Belgrade. The selection broadens the scope of collecting by encouraging encounters with artistic practices that are still underrepresented within the Italian exhibition landscape, while bringing together trajectories from different generations and geographical backgrounds. Within this context, particular emphasis is placed on a new generation of gallerists working in the primary market and committed to promoting a diverse range of artistic practices. Their emerging galleries contribute to the renewal of the art scene by supporting artists in the development of their careers and introducing audiences to practices that are still relatively unknown. Engaging with these galleries encourages an approach to collecting based on a deeper understanding of the works and on long-term support for artists and their research.
The Art Projects section will be dedicated to experimental projects, with a particular focus on solo and duo shows that provide an opportunity to explore in greater depth the practices of artists from different contexts. Focusing on one or two artistic voices allows for a closer reading of the works, processes and expressive choices that define each project. Independent will continue to provide a space for project spaces, artist and curator collectives, and hybrid organisations exploring modes of production and exchange that offer alternatives to the traditional dynamics of the art market.
This year, particular emphasis is placed on the Editor section, dedicated to independent publishing, artists’ books and rare editions: fields of research in which visual and textual languages intersect with experimentation and craftsmanship. Through publications and artist-led magazines, the section recognises publishing as a fully-fledged space for artistic production, capable of opening up new imaginaries and embracing practices that extend beyond conventional exhibition formats. The book thus becomes a space in which form, materials and the sequencing of images all contribute to the construction of meaning, offering artists, curators and readers opportunities for deeper exploration and new sources of inspiration. Located on the first floor, the section will be accompanied by a programme of talks, scheduled for Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September, featuring artists and publishers in a series of public conversations dedicated to their respective practices and research.
The Public Programme of the tenth edition is particularly rich, expanding the exhibition experience through exhibitions, installations, sound performances and a series of talks, translating the theme Let’s Get Lost into experiences of seeing, listening and exchange. Among the featured projects is a light sculpture by Bruno Bani, installed in the first cloister of the Real Collegio, at the entrance to the fair. The work is part of the project Practising the Gaze in the Cloister of the Real Collegio in Lucca, curated by Leonardo Conti. The intervention emerges from a direct relationship with the architecture: forms of light emphasise its geometries and suggest new lines of perspective, altering the perception of the space. The Milan-based artist’s research invites viewers to recognise the space while, at the same time, reconsidering its boundaries. In keeping with the theme of the fair, the sculpture encourages a way of looking that lingers on what familiarity tends to make invisible.
The relationship with space is explored anew through sound with Dimitri Grechi Espinoza, who, on Friday 25 September at 6.00 pm, in Cloister B of the Real Collegio, will present a sound performance from the series Love Is a Losing Game. A saxophonist and composer, Grechi brings together jazz, traditional cultures, spirituality and an exploration of the acoustic qualities of space. The performance reinterprets a selection of jazz standards, returning them to their melodic essence and placing them in dialogue with the resonances and silences of the cloister. The result is an intimate, suspended listening experience in which memory, loss and the present converge. In keeping with Let’s Get Lost, listening becomes an exercise in letting go: following the sound as it unfolds and allowing the space itself to suggest new directions.
The dialogue between music and the visual arts continues with Giuseppe Chiari. ART IS EASY, an exhibition curated by ArmandaGoriArte to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth (Florence, 26 September 1926 – 9 May 2007).
The fact that the anniversary coincides with the dates of the fair makes the project a tribute to one of the most radical figures in Italian art of the second half of the twentieth century. A musician, artist and theorist, and a leading Italian figure within Fluxus, Chiari moved across experimental music, performance and the visual arts, constantly challenging the boundaries between disciplines. He transformed the musical score into a visual space, the act of performance into artistic action, and musical instruments into objects to be questioned and reinvented. Hosted in the Sala Museum, the exhibition brings together works created between the 1960s and the 2000s: sheets of music paper, graphic interventions, photographic works, collages and works on panel reveal how musical language becomes the material of the image. Words, signs and erasures do not illustrate sound, but rather extend its possibilities, reflecting a practice grounded in freedom and the overcoming of established codes, in dialogue with the contemporary artistic research presented at the fair.
On Saturday 26 September at 3.30 pm, the series of talks Art, Business and Foundations.
Strategic Alliances in Contemporary Cultural Production will also continue. Launched during the previous edition, the series explores the relationship between culture, the business sector and the local territory. The talk will feature Andrea Savino, chartered accountant and statutory auditor specialising in international law and taxation, and Valentina Ciarallo, curator, art historian and lecturer at IED – Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, who will explore the impact of art on businesses. The discussion will examine how art, collecting and patronage can generate economic development and social value.
Promoted by Lucca Art Fair under the patronage of Confindustria Toscana Nord – Lucca, Pistoia and Prato, the initiative aims to foster new synergies between the public and private sectors and strengthen the role of culture as a strategic driver of local competitiveness.
The Real Collegio and Lucca’s historic centre are therefore not simply a backdrop, but an active part of the project. They shape its rhythm and scale, creating the conditions for a slower, more considered engagement with the works. In its tenth edition, Lucca Art Fair embraces this dimension: a place where artistic research meets the time needed for observation and dialogue, and where the value of the fair lies in the quality of its proposals and in the relationships that continue to develop beyond the days of the event.
Let’s Get Lost thus also becomes a way of understanding the fair itself: entering with an imagined route in mind and leaving having discovered an artist, a gallery, a book or a work that was previously unknown. Through this openness to the unexpected, Lucca Art Fair renews its mission as a meeting place for those who produce art, those who support it and those who choose to experience it.
LIST OF EXHIBITORS
Main Section
800/900 Artstudio, Livorno – Lucca; Accademia Libera, Calci A Pick Gallery, Torino; ArmandaGoriArte, Prato; Art Shop, Pistoia; Bernabò Home Gallery, Lucca; Brugiati Arte, Monterotondo; Candy Snake Gallery, Milano; Caruso Gallery, Milazzo; Centro de Edición Galería, Buenos Aires; Elena Ferrari Art Luxury & Design, Milano; Galeria Richard Vanderaa, Celrà; Galleria Cant’Art, Empoli; Galleria delle Visioni, Piacenza; Galleria Granelli, Livorno; Galleria Poliart, Milano; Galleria Wikiarte, Bologna; Galleria360, Firenze; Guareschi Arte, Parma; Marco Orler International Gallery, Oriago di Mira; Mondoromulo Arte Contemporanea, Castelvenere; Outarte, Vinci – Milano; Penta Art Gallery, Pietrasanta; Prototip Gallery, Belgrado; Spazio Murka, Firenze; New Marie Antoinette Gallery, Montecatini; Studio Pivuelle Arte, San Giovanni Valdarno; T.O.E. Art Market, Livorno; Unique Contemporary, Torino; Veridieci, Corte Franca.
Art Projects
Accademia Libera, Calci; Big Eyes Gallery, Bologna; Galleria Pan, Firenze; Ufofabrik Contemporary Art Gallery, Moena
Independent
Galleria Aarte’ è Gene, Roma; BAC – BartArt Contemporary, Roma; Studio Boldrini/Garuda, Uzzano; Studio Di Cristoforo, Cremona.
Editor
A60 International Art, Novate Milanese; DAANS, Marino; Ginevra Tarabusi, Pavia; Johan & Levi, Milano; Juliet Art Magazine, Trieste; Libreria del Portone, Reggio Emilia; L’Arengario Studio Bibliografico, Cellatica; Mark Andrew Brooks, Pisa; Maschietto Editore, Firenze; Set Margins’, Eindhoven; Studio Montespecchio, Montespecchio; Valeria Kondor, Budapest.
INFORMATION
Where
Real Collegio Piazza del Collegio, 13, Lucca
When
25–27 September 2026
Opening Hours
Friday: 3.00 pm–8.00 pm
Saturday: 10.00 am–8.00 pm
Sunday: 10.00 am–8.00 pm
Admission
Friday day ticket: €5.00
Saturday and Sunday day ticket: €10.00
Reduced day ticket: €8.00
Press Office
Lucca Art Fair
Matilde Sophia Poli
C +39 3311303702
Comments