Portrait of a (young) Italian artist. The investigation into the new Robinson

Who are the new talents of Italian art? Is there a system that supports them? While the Biennale is being prepared in Venice, opening on April 20th, we trace the portrait of the (Italian) artist as a young man on the cover of Robinson on newsstands with Republic from Sunday 7 April.

At the beginning, Dario Pappalardo takes stock of the circuit – academies, scholarships, non-profit spaces, galleries – into which those who decide to dedicate themselves to art enter. To explain what we are missing and what we need are the voices of curators, artists and museum directors, who reflect on our cultural heritage, so heavy but also potentially fruitful. To understand what meaning young artists give to identity, we went to the Museion in Bolzano, where the Vg Award has just been awarded, given by the Swiss Vordemberge-Gildewart foundation, one of the “richest” prizes in Europe for those under 35, : 15 finalists and one winner, Monia Ben Hamouda. With their works, brought together in the exhibition Renaissance, they tell the spirit of a generation. Finally, the other side of art, the social one: with Sara Scarafia we discover who the art influencers are who make works viral on the platforms. In the following pages, as always, you will find reviews of new releases in bookstores and the portrait of an author to be rediscovered: Chiara Valerio writes about Marguerite Yourcenar.

In the space dedicated to Readings, this week we host a text by Giancarlo De Cataldoin which the writer – on the occasion of the New York appointment with the festival Strong Multiples, traces the birth of his bestseller Romanzo Criminale (2002), while in the pages dedicated to TikTok, you will find something new: it is Book heart, the Robinsontok post. Andrea Amadio, bookseller and booktoker beloved as @libriconfragole, will answer existential questions and love problems by recommending a book; in our supplement we explain how to participate in this heart mail 2.0. Moving on to Comic booksyou will find an interview with Luca Raffaelli at Siomuch loved by young people and not only, and to Nicola Bernardi, co-authors of Tour of Japan (Feltrinelli Comics), cartoon chronicle of an unusual and fun cycling itinerary in the land of the Rising Sun.

To continue with the interviews, in the Shows Paolo Di Paolo met Ferzan Ozpetek, the director of many beloved films, from The ignorant fairies a A perfect day: as he returns with a new novel, entitled Hidden heart (Mondadori, in bookshops from Tuesday), Ozpetek explains why today he is not embarrassed about talking about happiness.

Finally, this week for Straparlando Antonio Gnoli met Arturo Zavattini, 94 years old, son of Cesare Zavattini, journalist and screenwriter who passed away in 1989, who wrote some of the great masterpieces of our neorealist cinema, from Sciuscià to La ciociara.

While his Diaries arrive in bookstores for La nave di Teseo, Cesare Zavattini retraces his childhood and youth but also a career as a photographer that took him everywhere.