Contemporary art and enterprises in the suburbs of Milan. The emergence of artistic geographies?

How do artistic geographies emerge in certain territories? How does the entanglement of art and enterprise reflect the artistic geography of a territory? These are some of the research questions that this article aims to address by focusing on the urban shape of contemporary art enterprises which determined the rise of certain “art districts” in a metropolis such as Milan. An analysis of the urban space demonstrates that there are cultural institutions which can be identified in a certain number of areas that serve as not as mere examples of static contemporary art attractions, but are in fact active triggers of a new vision of a city that provoke the re-defining its character and shape over the course of a number of years.