Bar Tango by Benni Bosetto

Several couples dancing the tango in a large performance space.
Performance day within the exhibition "Rebecca" by Benni Bosetto, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2026. Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri

Performances: Fri 13 – Sun 15 November 2026
Display: Mon 16 November 2026 – Sun 10 January 2027

Bar Tango is a new touring sculptural installation and performance by Benni Bosetto, comprising costumes, sculptures, and scenographic elements, accompanied by a sound composition. The production explores the corporeality of love through notions of intoxication, hybridisation, and coexistence. The edition at Nottingham Contemporary takes the form of a series of performances in mid-November which continues as a costume display visible from both inside and outside the building until January.

The apparent unity of our bodies is traversed by a multiplicity of entities and relationships. Some microorganisms are essential to our survival, while others can disrupt our equilibrium. Emotions and desires, too, inhabit, invade, and transform us. Love itself can be understood as a form of parasitism, a condition that intoxicates the body and alters our perception of reality. Biology and chemistry, alongside poetry and mysticism, offer different interpretations of these forms of interdependence, framing them as invasion, possession, or transformative union.

Conceived as an adaptable installation intertwining sculpture, fashion, and scenography, Bar Tango unfolds as a constellation of objects and a surreal choreography of performative gestures that permeate the institutional space. Tango dancers wear costumes that sculpt and transform their bodies, alongside accessories inspired by the animal, vegetal, and mineral worlds. At each institution, the performance is developed in collaboration with local tango dancers, allowing the project to enter into new dialogue with each city.

Originating in the Río de la Plata region, between Argentina and Uruguay, from the interweaving of European (particularly Italian), Creole, and African cultural traditions, tango is employed as a performative language through which narratives of seduction and romantic love are enacted, and identities and relationships are shaped by highly codified roles and persistent gender binaries.

Benni Bosetto evokes this imaginary through a language that is both dreamlike and deeply corporeal, questioning social roles and destabilising conventions while foregrounding contamination, permeability, and transformation as fundamental conditions of existence.

Curated by Almanac (Guido Santandrea & Filippo Berta) with Giulia Civardi.

Tango Dancers at Nottingham Contemporary from Northern Tango Academy.

Sound interludes: text and music by Benni Bosetto. Sound production by Vito Gatto.

ALMANAC, Turin, Italy
Performance: Wed 30 Sep 2026

Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
Performance: Fri 13 – Sun 15 Nov 2026
Exhibition: Mon 16 Nov 2026 – Sun 10 Jan 2027

Triennale Milano, Milan, Italy
Performance: Wed 24 Mar 2027

Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany
Performance: Fri 28 May 2027

der TANK, Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW, Basel, Switzerland
Exhibition: Fri 4 – Sun 20 Jun 2027
Performance: Sat 19 – Sun 20 Jun

Bar Tango is made possible with the support of the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture, as part of the Italian Council programme (14th edition, 2025), aimed at promoting Italian contemporary art internationally.

Almanac is supported by Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Fondazione CRT.

Produced and presented by Almanac (Turin, Italy) in partnership with Nottingham Contemporary (UK), Triennale Milano (Milan, Italy), Haus der Kunst (Munich, Germany), and der TANK – Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW (Basel, Switzerland), and MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna of the Settore Musei Civici of the Comune di Bologna (Bologna, Italy) where it will enter the permanent collection.

Benni Bosetto (b. 1987, Merate, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Recent solo exhibitions include Rebecca at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2026); Verde d’Alghe at Museo della Marineria, Pesaro (2024); Stultifera at MAMbo, Bologna (2022); Il Portico at Almanac, Turin (2020); and Ambiente X at Kunstraum, London (2019). Her work has been exhibited at numerous institutions, including Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin and Guarene (2026, 2023, 2020); Spazio Maiocchi, Milan (2026); KORA – Centro del Contemporaneo, Castrignano de’ Greci (2026); Madre, Naples (2025); MAMbo, Bologna (2025); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2024); MAXXI L’Aquila (2022); GAMeC, Bergamo (2022); Galleria Civica, Trento (2021); Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2021); Quadriennale d’Arte, Rome (2020); and Villa Medici, Rome (2019).

Almanac is a non-profit organisation based in Turin committed to presenting the multiplicity of forms and languages of contemporary art. Since 2013, it has operated as a curatorial platform for the research, development, and exhibition of artistic practices that engage with the complexities of the present. By fostering critical and interdisciplinary dialogue, Almanac supports social and educational action through art and promotes the growth of emerging artists.

Giulia Civardi is a curator and writer. Since 2020, she is the Curator of the Collection and related projects at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation. She is Curator of Revival, a series of exhibitions on art and music at Francesca Minini, Milan. She has also presented projects at Tate Modern, Rupert Centre for Art and Education, the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Fondazione ICA Milan, Kunstraum London, and Curated by Vienna, among others. She has lectured at Central Saint Martins, Goldsmiths University, the Courtauld Institute, the Barbican Centre, the Fine Arts Academy in Venice, and Pirelli HangarBicocca. Her writing, spanning essays, fiction, and criticism, has appeared in publications by Marsilio, Silvana Editoriale, NERO, Flash Art, and CURA., among others.

Nottingham Contemporary is a leading centre of contemporary art in Europe, and among the largest spaces of its kind in the UK. With a reputation for ambitious and risk taking exhibitions and live programme and an innovative and impactful engagement programme rooted in the city, we have welcomed more than 2.6 million visitors since our opening in 2009. Our international exhibitions spark important conversations about culture and society, often highlighting overlooked figures, histories, geographies and art practices. We support artists at all stages of their careers, from first institutional solo exhibitions to thematic group exhibitions and surveys of renowned figures. Commissioning new work from artists forms a key strand of our curatorial mission, supporting artists to explore new directions in their practice and realise ambitious work.

Triennale Milano has been promoting culture as a means of encounter for over 100 years, through the languages of design, architecture, and the visual and performing arts. In the Palazzo dell’Arte, designed by Giovanni Muzio in 1933, Triennale puts on international exhibitions, performances, concerts, talks and workshops that offer new perspectives on the contemporary world. Triennale is home to the Museo del Design Italiano, where you can see some of the 1,600 objects from its permanent collection. With its theatre and Voce, the new space dedicated to sound and music, it offers a rich year-round programme of live arts. Triennale’s archives and research center can be visited in Cuore. Every three years Triennale organises the International Exhibition, which has been one of the most important events in the world of design and architecture since 1923.

Haus der Kunst is one of the world’s leading centres for contemporary arts, situated in Munich. It focuses on working with living artists, drawing diverse histories of contemporary art through exhibitions, performance and music, with learning and engagement as a foundational force shaping how the programme is conceived and shared. Since 2022, Haus der Kunst has been transforming fast. Reappraising canons and stereotypes, this vision weaves projects into a story that evolves over time, creating a new context in which to understand our increasingly digitalised world. Today, it functions as a unique site for major retrospectives on trailblazing media artists that converse with younger artists, constituting an entirely new frame of reference with interconnections across projects and new forms of display that address the body and all senses.

The Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW is dedicated to visual arts education. About one hundred students are part of the three-year bachelor’s and a two-year master’s programme. Embracing nature and social justice lie at the core of their curricula. They further organise a diverse public programme of events, including international symposia, a series of discursive events titled Art Taaalkssss, and an art commission programme at der TANK, their exhibition space. In addition, they regularly publish podcast episodes and the digital publication series Wild Papers. They understand the mission of art and artists as an essential contribution toward imagining and experiencing freedom and possible social futures. Located on the Campus Dreispitz in Basel/Münchenstein, in the immediate vicinity of the Kunsthaus Baselland, the HEK (House of Electronic Arts), the Atelier Mondial, as well as other institutions and companies active in the areas of art and design, the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW offers a creative environment for studies in art, design and art and design education with a focus on digitality, diversity and sustainability. der TANK is the exhibition space of the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW—a glass cube located at the heart of the Campus Dreispitz in Basel. It hosts a series of commissioned art projects by international artists, as well as by former students and lecturers called The Commissions. The series Students’ Realm features exhibition projects by students.

MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, inaugurated in 2007, is part of the Area Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of the Settore Musei Civici of the Comune di Bologna. With its extensive spaces dedicated to visual culture and experimentation, the museum collects, preserves, studies, interprets, and exhibits its artistic heritage. The museum’s permanent collection offers an interpretation of Italian art through the history of the Gallery of Modern Art of Bologna and subsequent acquisitions, spanning from the 1950s to the most recent developments. Temporary exhibitions are held in the Sala delle Ciminiere (Chimney Hall) and the Project Room.

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