Trentino-south Tyrol with a contemporary twist

Smach, the Biennial of Public Art in the Dolomites

The holidays in Trentino Alto Adige for art lovers have already begun on 8 July in San Martino in Badia with the sixth edition of Smach, Biennial of Public Art of the Dolomites, which can be visited with free access until 10 September. As Anna Quinz explains "Smach is not really an exhibition, but a very valid land art project that brings international artists to install site-specific contemporary art works in the spectacular scenery of the Dolomites of Val Badia."

The 2023 edition brings 10 works (the winning projects) to 10 locations in the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site, between the Puez-Odle and Fanes-Senes-Braies National Parks and in various sites of Nature 2000.

The projects created by national and international artists, designers, architects or collectives have been selected on the basis of their aesthetic-conceptual qualities.

The announcement did not provide any credit for the candidates' curriculum, but the selection considered the sustainability of the project presented and its rigorous adherence to the thematic and cultural criteria proposed by the call.

See also: Tuscany of contemporary art

Discovering customs and traditions

The provincial museum of uses and customs, in Teodone , near Brunico, is an incredible open-air ethnographic museum, where you can discover everything about the local culture, from the rural world to the noble life of the past.

The collection of religious relics is spectacular, such as that of textiles, including embroidered clothes and other ancient wonders.

In the center is the imposing Baroque residence Mair am Hof, with the manor rooms and ethnographic collections, in the open area there are the original structures of old farmsteads and craft workshops, as well as vegetable gardens and pets, in a journey that illustrates the main stages of everyday life in a world that has now disappeared.

By participating in workshops such as the one for baking bread, in theme days and by attending the exhibition of the crafts of the past, visitors will be able to make an exciting journey back in time.

Contemporary art in the vineyards

Nestled on a hill just outside Bolzano, the Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare offers temporary exhibitions and displays of the valuable collection of the owner, Antonio Dalle Nogare, as well as events and activities much loved by people from Bolzano and beyond.

Until February 24, 2024, the foundation is hosting the first retrospective exhibition in an Italian institution of the Argentine artist David Lamelas (Buenos Aires, 1946), author of one of the most fascinating artistic research of a conceptual matrix emerged at the end of the 1960s.

Lamelas prepares the exhibition, which will be reconfigured over the months in the layout, as a further study of the concepts of space and time that have characterized all of his research.

Working on an installation not confined to a defined space and pacing the time of the exhibition on the longer and more mobile one of perception and thought, the artist invites us to consider the dimensions of space and time as something interpretable< /strong> and then variable.

In Merano, a studio in the former silo

The designer Harry Thaler has his studio in a tower that was once a carpentry silo. After his Masters in Design Products at the Royal College of Art (2010), Thaler opened his own studio in London where he developed the Pressed  Chair which quickly became well known.

Today Thaler collaborates with international companies such as Nils Holger Moormann, Pulpo, Davide Groppi, Monocle, Leaos and Olev Light.

His field of activity also includes the design of interior and exterior spaces and projects in the field of architecture, as well as engaging in the design of bicycles. The studio can be visited by appointment.

Evening along the Passirio river

We stay in Merano to treat ourselves to a tasty evening along the Passirio river, first with an aperitif at the Meteo BeachBar and, after a few steps, at the Meteo restaurant, where a suggestive location and cuisine with an always surprising creative twist are guaranteed.

Il Meteo opened in 2015 by Thomas Strappazzon and Agata Erlacher: Agata is an artist today having become patronne and maître sensitive and singular, Agata struggles to give definitions of their cuisine.

Not that she doesn't quite understand what they are doing, but she doesn't know, and maybe she doesn't want to, nail it to a label: “We don't like complications. We don't have particular obsessions about traditions. We love the raw materials that surround us, nearby. We adhere to energy and frequencies, but we don't like to box ourselves in."

In Ortisei, for those who long for home

In Val Gardena, in the middle of one of the most beautiful open-air 'gyms' in the world, a family home built in the 1930s has been renovated judiciously to offer 12 rooms without tv to truly unplug.

Casa al Sole is a balanced mix between what has been kept, doors , windows, floors, and everything that has been introduced, deliberately detached from the pre-existing.

The renovation was based on a triple principle, slowness, quiet, serenity, through the use of materials such as raw steel, larch wood, natural stone, clay , felt and gravel.

Sleeping in the heart of the Dolomites

Right in the middle of the astonishing landscape of the Alpe di Siusi, with the spectacular architecture by Modus Architects, Icaro Hotel is a real Alpine Wunderkammer , full of bright colors, unexpected objects and a crazy view of some of the most majestic peaks of the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

More than just a hotel, Icaro is a space of energy that radiates vivacity and joie de live. Angelika Sattler, her husband Hubert, the other family members and the entire team have the utmost respect for everything around them: for their guests first of all, but also for the Alpe di Siusi and the Dolomites, a unique mountain ecosystem of great cultural and naturalistic value.

Angelika represents the third generation of an adventure that began in the 50s with the management of an inn by her grandmother: this passing of the baton led her to decide in 2021 to rethink the structure from the ground up by entrusting the project to the well-known studio Modus Architects from Brixen.

The new Icaro is made with sustainable materials, in collaboration with expert local craftsmen, the rooms are spacious and the common areas spread over three levels that blend into the landscape through particular architectural solutions.

And to conclude the tour, a wellness passage in Trentino

Keeping the bond with nature close, we also recommend a regenerating break in Val di Fiemme (Trentino), a land of woods where even floors are 'healthy'.

Inside the suites and spa with a view of the Dolomites of La Roccia Wellness Hotel of Cavalese, for example, it is possible to relax wrapped in the biocompatible wood of Fiemme Tremila which has been creating surfaces capable of improving indoor air quality for 30 years and which will again be among the supporters this year of the World Wellness Weekend scheduled throughout the Val di Fiemme, and in world, from 15 to 17 September 2023.