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Lupo lupo, che ore sono?
Bekhbaatar Enkhtur
Eleonora Mariani
Vincenzo Simone
Giuseppe Urciuolo
Arianna Zama
Curated by Gioele Melandri
8 October 2026 - 13 November 2026
Artopia is delighted to inaugurate, on Thursday 8 October, the new exhibition season 2026–2027 with the group show “Lupo lupo, che ore sono?”, curated by Gioele Melandri, featuring the artists Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Ulaanbaatar, 1994), Eleonora Mariani (Carate Brianza, 1994), Vincenzo Simone (Seraing, 1980), Giuseppe Urciuolo (Benevento, 2000) and Arianna Zama (Lugo, 1998).
The exhibition project explores the subtle relationship between children’s play, artistic creation and power dynamics. The title, inspired by a phrase repeatedly used during a kids’ game, serves as a narrative pretext and suggests an exhibition layout that engages in close dialogue with the gallery’s architecture and the various viewing mechanisms it offers.
The ground floor of the gallery is surrounded by a series of paintings. The artists on display share a specific methodological affinity: the work of Eleonora Mariani, Vincenzo Simone, Giuseppe Urciuolo and Arianna Zama employs painting as a catalyst, a vehicle for giving form to obsession and desire towards a scene or an object, conveying its essence through a personal and intuitive mode of perception that is not without its own internal rules. For these artists, the very act of painting takes the form of an exercise in possession, an almost primordial attempt to tame and dominate the world in order to make it tangibly comprehensible and, in some way, even manageable.
Meanwhile, at the centre of the space is exhibited a sculpture, created specifically for the exhibition, by the artist Bekhbaatar Enkhtur. Through a clearly anti-monumental approach, the work renounces any pretence of superiority within the exhibition layout. Rather than positioning itself as the linchpin around which everything revolves, Enktur’s animal figure seems instead to be succumbing to the pressure of its surroundings, intimidated and cornered by the collective force of the selection of paintings set against it. It is a perceptual short-circuit in which the predator becomes prey and where the visual focal point of the exhibition exists only to be subverted and overturned.
“The idea behind the exhibition stems from a desire to bring together a series of painterly explorations that are closely related and in close dialogue with one another. To this cohesive body of work is then added a single three-dimensional piece: a sculpture by Bekhbaatar Enkhtur intended as a deliberately out-of-step presence; this element serves as a pretext for the gaze to stumble within the space and enliven the verticality of the painting, creating new visual paths, new interweavings and cross-pollinations. This exhibition is, in my view, a small internal struggle for the eyes, an unequal duel that manifests itself solely in potential, a moment before it can be consummated” writes the curator in the text accompanying the exhibition.
Bekhbaatar Enkhtur
Bekhbaatar Enkhtur (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 1994) lives and works in Turin. His practice centres primarily on sculpture and installation, using materials such as beeswax, pewter, aluminium, brass, copper and clay. His work explores the relationship between memory, matter and transformation, interweaving personal memories, migration, oral traditions, spirituality and zoomorphic and mythological imagery linked to Mongolian culture.
His solo exhibitions include “Tinct” at Pedro Cera, Madrid (2025), “Hearsay” at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin (2024), “Flux” at Pedro Cera, Lisbon (2024) and “Imagining for Real” at Matèria, Rome (2023). He has also taken part in the Bukhara Biennale (2025), “Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guest” at the HKW in Berlin (2025) and the Future Generation Art Prize at the PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv (2024).
In 2023, he received the illy Present Future Prize at Artissima and, in 2024, the Special Prize at the Future Generation Art Prize. His works are held in public and private collections, including the MAO – Museum of Oriental Art in Turin, the UniCredit Collection and the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation.
Eleonora Mariani
Eleonora Mariani (Carate Brianza, 1994) lives and works in Milan. In 2021, she obtained a Second-Level Diploma in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, under the guidance of Professor Marco Cingolani. Her artistic practice begins with the observation and reproduction of objects arranged on a flat surface, following the traditional method of still-life painters. Through the process of painting, the artist analyses the form of the subjects and the relationships between them, whilst the classical tools of painting — composition, perspective and colour — are employed in such a way as to generate a short-circuit, primarily visual, which opens up the construction of new meanings. A central role is assigned to light, understood not only as a physical phenomenon but above all as an object of reflection: no longer rational, but symbolic, it imbues the subjects—pears, strawberries, bananas, blueberries—with different emotions, causing them to inhabit a space of the imagination in which they take part in a new life. The painterly practice thus takes the form of a continuous perceptual and sensory exploration, which ceases to view the relationship between man and nature as one-sided control, highlighting instead a form of almost symbiotic interaction.
Vincenzo Simone
Vincenzo Simone (Seraing, Belgium, 1980), lives and works in Bologna, where he graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. His artistic practice is primarily centred on painting, focusing on the possibilities for constructing and transforming the image and on the relationship between subject, space and surface. Landscapes, still lifes, objects and fragments of everyday life are some of the recurring themes in his work. Through a process of observation and reworking, Simone intervenes on the structure of the image, using composition, colour, material and space as tools inherent to the language of painting. Reality is thus taken as a starting point for the construction of an image that progressively alters our perception of it. Throughout his career, he has held solo exhibitions and taken part in various group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Exhibition venues include the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, the Fondazione VOLUME! in Rome and the MRAC Occitanie in Sérignan. In 2020, he took part in the “Nuovo Forno del Pane” residency project at MAMbo – the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna. In 2021, he won the UniCredit Art4Future prize, with his work “Notturno anche se è giorno” being acquired for the UniCredit Art Collection.
Giuseppe Urciuolo
Giuseppe Urciuolo (Benevento, 2000) lives and works in Bologna, where he is currently enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Giuseppe Urciuolo’s work seeks neither completeness nor explanation. Each piece remains suspended, open, unfinished in its unstable perfection. It is in this precariousness that the strength of his painting lies: the surfaces vibrate, the edges pulsate, the colour retains the freshness of the gesture. Each work is a space of anticipation and tension, an unstable reality, permeated by speed, by continuous transformation, by the difficulty of capturing images, experiences, and even emotions.
His work has been featured in the exhibitions “Tieniti pure i tuoi segreti” (2025), curated by Gioele Melandri and Vincenzo Simone, at Gelateria Sogni di Ghiaccio, Bologna (IT), “Prima di Perdersi” (2026) with Enrico Pierotti, curated by Michele Cotelli, Spazio Torrso, Pesaro (IT); and “La Follia che viene dall’Incanto” (2026), curated by Luca Caccioni, P420 Gallery, Bologna (IT).
Arianna Zama
Arianna Zama (Lugo, 1998) lives and works between Lugo and Bologna. She trained at the Academies of Fine Arts in Ravenna and Bologna. Through the languages of painting and drawing, her artistic practice develops an imaginary world composed of traces and fragments of bodies, plants and rooms. Ghostly figures, wild plants and faces seem to form a sort of wild garden or impossible atlas, where suggestions drawn from novels, memories and visions intertwine. Her work has been featured in various exhibitions and art fairs, including: “Collezioni in Collezione”, promoted by Anna Grazia Stefani and Francesco Tampieri, MAMbo (Bologna, 2026); “The Odyssey of Recollection”, Patrizia Pepe HQ (Capalle, FI, 2026); Artissima, Galleria Fuocherello (Turin, 2025); “Il giardino delle risonanze. La Pinacoteca di Bologna incontra il MAMbo” (Bologna, 2025); Artefiera, Pittura XXI section, curated by Davide Ferri, Galleria Fuocherello (Bologna, 2025); “There Are No Ghosts”, Galleria Fuocherello (Volvera, TO, 2023); “Bridging Distances”, Galleria P420, curated by Cecilia Canziani and Davide Ferri (Bologna, 2022). Her works are held in public and private collections such as MAMbo Bologna, BPER Banca and Collection of Collections.