Journeys, studios & stories.
A living record of the collaborations, studio visits, press features and quiet milestones that shape 12 Brass Street — from Lagos to Napoli, and everywhere the work has taken us.
A day in Italy with Bruno Donzelli.
12 Brass Street travelled to Italy to spend an afternoon inside the studio of Bruno Donzelli — the Naples-born master whose ironic, pop-inflected canvases have shaped Italian contemporary art for over six decades.
Who is Bruno Donzelli?
Born in Naples on 12 April 1941, Bruno Donzelli is one of Italy's most distinctive contemporary voices — a painter who reads the history of modern art the way a jazz musician reads a standard: with reverence, irony and improvisation. His first solo show opened at the Galleria del Fiorino in Florence in 1962, and by the mid-sixties his work was being exhibited across Bologna, Palermo, Rome, Paris and Barcelona.
Rooted in Pop Art and Expressionism, Donzelli's paintings quote Picasso, Matisse, Rauschenberg, Basquiat and the Italian avant-garde — but never as pastiche. Handwritten names, comic-book gestures and jubilant colour turn the canvas into a running conversation with the masters. His work has been collected internationally and shown at institutions including the Palazzo dei Capitani in Ascoli Piceno and the "Il Segno dell'Ironia" retrospective at Spazio SV in Venice.
Spending time in his studio was a reminder of why 12 Brass Street exists: real connection with the artists shaping the culture, wherever in the world that takes us — from Lagos to Napoli.
12 Brass Street at Atlanta Art Week.
A week inside Atlanta's most ambitious gathering of galleries, collectors and artists — moving between openings, studio visits and late-night conversations about where contemporary art is heading next.
The making of an ArtStar.
Selected from a field of countless entries, Progress "PJay" Jesutomiwa Giwa's "Progress" took the 2024 ArtStar Prize — a vibrant reminder that a new generation of Nigerian artists is only getting bolder, louder and more essential.
As covered by Nigerian media.
Features and conversations across Nigeria's leading outlets — a record of the moments the work stepped into the public eye.
Have a story to add to the archive?
Studio visits, collaborations, features — we're always documenting what comes next.