What We Are Watching: Signals from the Market
In recent months, a clear trajectory has been gradually emerging – not as the result of an abrupt shift, but rather as a progressive realignment of attention, as institutions, collectors, and market operators increasingly gravitate toward artistic practices grounded in a strong, recognisable, and structurally coherent visual language.
Within this evolving landscape, figurative painting, the vocabulary of Pop Art, and, more broadly, those expressive systems built upon image, repetition, and symbolic construction are regaining a centrality that feels neither nostalgic nor retrospective, but distinctly contemporary.
Revisiting the Post-War: A Presence That Never Disappeared
The Italian context offers a particularly compelling lens through which to observe this phenomenon.
Recent exhibitions dedicated to Mario Schifano, Mimmo Rotella, Emilio Tadini, and Andy Warhol – presented across Rome, Genoa, Milan, and Ferrara – do not merely reaffirm an established historical narrative; rather, they reactivate, in a contemporary key, a set of questions that remain deeply relevant today: the relationship with the image, the mediation of reality, and the construction of identity.
Photo by Giorgio Benni © MARIO SCHIFANO, by SIAE 2026 © Archivio Mario Schifano
Mario Schifano, an exhibition currently underway at Palazzo Esposizioni, Rome, curated by Daniela Lancioni, from March 17 to July 12, 2026.
“The tender and sensitive core of his soul is the passion for painting”
Cesare Vivaldi
In particular, the exhibition at Palazzo dei Diamanti, dedicated to the Ladies and Gentlemen series, offers a remarkably lucid insight into how Warhol’s reflection on the image – understood as a cultural device before an aesthetic one – continues to exert a lasting interpretative force.
At the same time, the renewed attention surrounding Mario Schifano and Mimmo Rotella allows for a clearer recognition of their ability to intercept and transform the codes of visual communication, anticipating dynamics that now define the broader ecosystem of images.
Expanding Geographies
If Italian Post-War art represents a solid foundation for this trajectory, the international context further confirms its relevance today.
In this regard, the recent institutional exhibition dedicated to Mario Schifano at SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen in Germany contributes to reinforcing his position within a global reading of post-war art. This is not a rediscovery, but rather a reaffirmation of a practice which, while rooted in a specific cultural context, has developed a visual language capable of transcending geographical boundaries while retaining its clarity and intensity.
Alongside this trajectory, there is a growing attention toward contemporary practices deeply rooted in strong and recognisable cultural identities. In particular, the work of Esther Mahlangu – currently the focus of significant institutional projects, especially in the United States – demonstrates how international collecting is increasingly oriented toward works that successfully combine tradition, symbolic structure, and visual immediacy.
Her compositions, firmly grounded in Ndebele culture, maintain a remarkable formal coherence while simultaneously achieving a visual clarity that allows them to resonate beyond their original context, as evidenced by their presence in major private collections and the increasing level of institutional support.
Photo of Walker Banskon
Courtesy of Hassan Smith
In both cases – despite differing historical and geographical contexts—what emerges is a shared capacity to construct images that endure over time, preserving their identity and visual strength.
What ultimately connects these signals is an increasingly evident shift in the way collecting is being redefined: a return to artists working with strong visual codes – image, symbol, repetition, identity -capable of maintaining a clear presence within an increasingly complex visual landscape.
Within this context, the research carried forward by Trium Art Gallery finds a natural position, having long focused on artists and practices that now sit at the centre of this renewed institutional and market attention, including Mario Schifano, Mimmo Rotella, Emilio Tadini, Andy Warhol, and Esther Mahlangu.
Following these developments means maintaining a continuous dialogue with both the institutional sphere and market dynamics, while supporting private and corporate collectors in building collections that are coherent, informed, and capable of sustaining their value over time.
