Contemporary Art and Urban Regeneration in the City of Milan

The current debate on urban regeneration and competitiveness is all the more significant when it makes possible to understand the development of new industrial clusters, the dynamics of growth, and the consequent new spaces that are being created in a metropolis. Some of this debate call for a break with past interpretations with regard on the one side to systems and practices dealing with territorial production, occupation, and exploitation, and on the other to those politics of urban management that try to identify, keep, and exploit its creative potential. In an enclosed space, such as a district, a city, or an area within the city, creative potential is intimately linked to the degree of knowledge and innovation, let alone the kind of cultural opportunities that space provides. Paradoxically, the most obvious limits to the exploitation of any space derives from the public authorities' inability to do away with past practices, industrial patters, and traditional ways of doing. On a global scale, the trend seems to be that of first creating and then promoting creative and cultural circuits in urban spaces in accordance with competitiveness and value production criteria. These strategies have multiple objectives. These range from the more intangible ones, such as finding a role for a city or an area within the knowledge economy, to the more measurable ones, such as those that show immediate economic results. Different criteria and means can be used to evaluate the achievement of the stated objectives. To be sure, standard do exist that enable the evaluation of achievements, such as statistical reports that rank cities and regions on an international scale. The visibility, perception, and image of a certain place, then, together with its attractiveness, is directly influenced to the impact of such evaluations and rankings. This article examines the current transformation of the city of Milan within the above-described interpretive framework. Such transformations are often directly linked to creative and cultural representations. This article places and examines contemporary art at the centre of these transformations. Art, and contemporary art in particular, could play a most beneficial role in the city's regeneration.