Highlights included displays created in partnership with Candiani and Diesel, plus a new commission by English artist Ian Berry.  

Candiani’s exhibition was interactive, with a focus on the environmental impact of (and “sustainable” solutions to) jeans production, whereas Diesel offered up articles curated from its denim archive - many of which were shown outside its premises for the very first time - and exhibited on what it described as jeans’ “sustainable future”.  

The Vicenza-headquartered brand also invited visitors to explore a handmade-in-Italy reproduction of “the first jeans ever documented in history” (reportedly a replica of a Nativity scene garment), in addition to a reflection on the historical relationship between jeans and advertising. 

Ian Berry’s contribution, a donation from the artist, took the form of a 106 x 77 x 6-centimetre denim assemblage, titled Portrait of Giuseppe Garibaldi. (Mr Garibaldi, who lived between 1807 and 1882, was an Italian patriot and military general known to have worn trousers made from hardy bleu de Gênes - or “blue jeans” - fabric.) The work currently hangs in Genoa’s Risorgimento Museum.  

ArteJeans also showed a collection of 35 specially created denim artworks, all of which were made using Candiani-supplied jeans.   

Later, visitors were treated to a guided tour of the Blu di Genova collection inside the city’s Diocesan Museum. Considered by some to be the “ancestors” of denim jeans, the so-called Passion canvases on jeans fabric depict various moments in the Passion of Christ and were created during 1538 and the end of the seventeenth century. The fourteen linen sheets which constitute the broader artwork were dyed with indigo and painted in white lead beginning with Italian late Renaissance artist Teramo Piaggio (1485-1554).  

Organisers emphasised Genoa’s denim heritage and history of creativity throughout the event.  

Image: Diesel sustainability ambassador Andrea Rosso.