Massimo Minini opened his gallery in Brescia, dubbed Banco, in 1973. During his early years of activity, he was involved mainly with Conceptual Art, Arte Povera and Minimal Art.
He decided in the late seventies and early eighties to continue along these lines with works from some young Italian and foreign artists, including Ettore Spalletti,
Jan Fabre, Didier Vermeiren, Bertrand Lavier, Anish Kapoor, Alberto Garutti, Icaro and Gerwald Rockenschaub. The gallery, however, also displayed works by figurative artists such as Salvo, Luigi Ontani, Ger Van Elk, Jiri Georg Dokoupil and Ryan Mendoza.
In the mid-1990s the gallery started to focus on a group of Italian artists, such as Eva Marisaldi, Mario Airò, Stefano Arienti, Maurizio Cattelan, Vanessa Beecroft, Sabrina Torelli, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Francesco Simeti and Paolo Chiasera. In more recent years, as well as displaying works by long-standing artists –Boetti, Accardi, Fabro, Paolini, LeWitt, Barry, Graham and Buren– the gallery has staged important exhibitions by Yona Friedman, Roger Ballen, Nedko Solakov, Haim Steinbach, Peter Halley and Ghada Amer, and works by newcomers such as Dara Friedman, Manfred Pernice, Sean Snyder, Mathieu Mercier, Jan De Cock, Tino Seghal and David Maljkovic.
The Massimo Minini Gallery has stands at major international fairs, including Art Basel in Basel, Artissima in Turin, Arte Fiera in Bologna, Frieze in London and New York, Fiac in Paris and Miart in Milan. It has always publicised its activities in such international magazines as Frieze, Flash Art, Artforum, Artreview, Mousse, Il Giornale dell’Arte and Parkett.
In recent years the gallery has collaborated with a series of museums in Italy and abroad, one of its main achievements being a collection of Italian photographs entitled United Artists of Italy, which Massimo Minini put together and is currently touring several European museums. The collection comprises portraits of Italian artists by famous photographers such as Mulas, Giacomelli, Catalano, Gorgoni, Mussat Sartor and Cresci. He has loaned long-term to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, a large sculpture by Anish Kapoor and a pavilion by
Dan Graham, and to MADRE, Naples, several works by Ettore Spalletti.
Increasing focus on its relations with the city of Brescia has led the gallery to organise a series of exhibitions here: Capolavori in corso, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia, 2008-2009; Quattro collezionisti a confronto, Accademia Tadini, Lovere (Bergamo), 2009; Massimo Minini: una storia contemporanea
