Viafarini was founded in the early Nineties with the aim to support young artists in their careers and to awaken the public's interest in contemporary art, combining exhibition and educational programs with documentation services about visual arts.

Viafarini’s mission focuses on three fundamental aspects:

• to facilitate the debut of of young Italian artists in the contemporary art world, as first step towards their professional growth and the consequent interest curators, art critics and museum professionals;
• to foster young artists’ mobility and to support them in raising funds, as conditions for the forwarding of their careers, also at international level;
• to widen the public interested in contemporary art through exhibitions, as well as educational and training activities

In detail, Viafarini’s goals are:
 

• to create a place for information and services about contemporary visual arts, including
  _ an exhibition space to offer young artists opportunities to exhibit their works in solo or group shows, as well as to produce projects by internationally known artists, giving the Milanese public the chance to get to know the main actors of the international art scene;
  _ documentation services about visual arts, such as the Artists Archive, the specialized Library and the database ArtBox about study and job opportunities for young artists and professionals, in order to offer means of information and documentation for the public with easy access to the materials thanks to technology;
  _ an artists’ residence;
• to offer a variety of orientation and consulting services, as well as educational and training activities;
• to promote and organize contemporary art events outside of its premises;
• to promote an art organization and exhibition space favoring exchange in the field of visual arts, also at international level;
• to start an organizational model new to Italy, which collects funds for art projects like a mediator between the sponsor and the beneficiary;
• to support the artistic message as a potential innovator in contemporary society.

Viafarini was established in 1991 as a non profit organization, taking the American examples and the European Kunstverein as models. This concept was new to Italy at that time, and among the most innovatory ideas were the exhibition space conceived as a project room, the building up of international relationships and its management based on collaboration between private and public bodies.The first two events, Immagini proiettate and Membership Viafarini, correspond respectively with the foundation of the Artists Archive and the starting of a membership program.

Viafarini starts an exhibition space conceived as a “project room”, devoted to promoting Italy’s emerging art scene, as well as offering a view on the international art scene.
Through the years Viafarini has become a point of reference for young and emerging artists, many of them eventually became internationally acclaimed, among them: Rebecca Agnes, Simone Berti, Pierluigi Calignano, Pierpaolo Campanini, Gianni Caravaggio, Letizia Cariello, Maggie Cardelùs, Valerio Carrubba, Maurizio Cattelan, Gea Casolaro, Paolo Chiasera, Roberto Cuoghi, Paola Di Bello, Elisabetta Di Maggio, Lara Favaretto, Piero Golia, Massimo Grimaldi, Giuseppe Gabellone, Stefania Galegati, Giovanni Kronenberg, Luisa Lambri, Claudia Losi, Margherita Manzelli, Margherita Morgantin, Eva Marisaldi, Laura Matei, Sabrina Mezzaqui, Liliana Moro, Marco Papa, Alessandro Pessoli, Cesare Pietroiusti, Paola Pivi, Gabriele Picco, Alex Pinna, Pietro Roccasalva, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Alberto Tadiello, Alessandra Tesi, Luca Trevisani, Patrick Tuttofuoco, Enzo Umbaca, Nico Vascellari, Vedovamazzei, Italo Zuffi.

Viafarini works at international level producing site-specific projects by artists such as: Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Maja Bajevic, Valentin Carron, Martin Creed, Jimmie Durham, Katharina Grosse, Mona Hatoum, Mathilde ter Heijne, Federico Herrero, Nic Hess, Runa Islam, Hans Op de Beeck, Tobias Rehberger, David Renggli, Rosemarie Trockel, Gillian Wearing.