Biennale di Viterbo Arte Contemporanea: the Ninth Edition in Celleno

The Biennale di Viterbo Arte Contemporanea is at its ninth edition, and it runs from 18 July to 30 October 2026 in Celleno, in the province of Viterbo. The edition is titled Appartenenza e Radici: opportunità od ostacolo? — Belonging and Roots: opportunity or obstacle? — and it asks artists, schools and the people who live in the area whether cultural and territorial roots are an opening for dialogue or a limit on what can be made. It is organised by A.P.A.I., the Associazione per la Promozione delle Arti in Italia, and it is free to visit.

Celleno is an unusual host for contemporary art. The medieval village on the tufa spur was abandoned over several decades, from the 1930s to the 1950s, as seismic risk and subsidence in the soft volcanic rock made it uninhabitable; the community rebuilt itself on firmer ground nearby, and the old borgo — roofless stone houses, a church still standing, the Tuscia landscape below — is now visited as heritage and used, from time to time, for cultural events. A biennial on belonging and roots, held in a village its own inhabitants had to leave, is not a neutral choice of address.

Practical details

• When: 18 July to 30 October 2026
• Where: Celleno, Province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy — several venues across the town
• Admission: free
• Organised by: A.P.A.I. — Associazione per la Promozione delle Arti in Italia
• Theme: Appartenenza e Radici: opportunità od ostacolo?

The individual venues, the opening hours of each site and the calendar of the collateral events are set by the organisers edition by edition, and were not published in full when this page was written. Cultural Heritage Online lists this biennial for readers who follow contemporary art in the smaller towns of central Italy, and keeps the place it is held in — the ghost village of Celleno — in its archive.