Bar Tango
Winner of the the Italian Council (14th edition, 2025)
October 30, 2026–June 20, 2027
Almanac, Turin
October 29, Performance
Club Almagro, Via Perugia, Turin, Italy
Nottingham Contemporary
November 16, 2026–January 10, 2027, Exhibition; November 13–15, Performance
Triennale Milano
March 24, Performance
Haus der Kunst, Munich
May 28, Performance
der TANK HGK Basel FHNW
June 4–20, Exhibition; June 19–20, Performance
Bar Tango is a new sculptural installation and performance by Benni Bosetto, comprising costumes, sculptures, and scenographic elements, accompanied by a sound composition. Curated by Almanac (Guido Santandrea, Filippo Berta) with Giulia Civardi, the new production explores the corporeality of love through notions of intoxication, hybridisation, and coexistence.
The project is presented at Almanac in Turin, Nottingham Contemporary, Triennale Milano, Haus der Kunst, and der TANK—Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW, before entering the collection of MAMbo—Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna of the Settore Musei Civici of the Comune di Bologna.
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 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.
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.
Bar Tango is a project by Benni Bosetto, curated by Almanac (Guido Santandrea, Filippo Berta) with Giulia Civardi.
Costume production: Alessia Fregonese. Sound interludes: text and music by Benni Bosetto. Sound production by Vito Gatto.
Bar Tango is produced by Almanac in partnership with der TANK—Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW, Nottingham Contemporary, Haus der Kunst Munich, Triennale Milano, and MAMbo—Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna of the Settore Musei Civici of the Comune di Bologna.
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.
