Mundialito @ Artissima Cabaña

With Mundialito, we conceived a tournament that is at once a game, a social experiment and a relational device. Hosted within Artissima Cabaña, the newly inaugurated lounge of the fair, the first edition of Mundialito brought together art professionals in an atmosphere that combined elegance, informality and playful tension.

Artissima Cabaña, designed and furnished by Il Giardino di Legno, known for its high-quality teak outdoor furniture, became the stage for four custom teak table football tables around which the tournament unfolded. Between loungers and gazebos, and accompanied by cocktails and hot dogs by Costardi Bros, the setting encouraged encounters that moved fluidly between leisure and competition.

Mundialito is built on a simple but destabilizing rule: every participant belongs to two teams simultaneously: a “public” team, and a “secret” team, generated randomly by software and revealed only at the end of each day, during the award ceremony.

Matches are played in doubles (2 vs 2), yet the real competition unfolds on a parallel level. The only teams eligible for prizes are the secret ones. As a result, no player ever fully knows who they are playing with, or against. Alliances shift invisibly, and the boundary between collaboration and rivalry becomes porous.

For us, this dual structure transforms the familiar mechanics of table football into a metaphor for the art world itself: a network of visible partnerships and hidden alignments, where competition and solidarity constantly overlap.

More than a tournament, Mundialito is conceived as a platform for connection. By introducing uncertainty and delayed revelation, we encourage participants to navigate trust, intuition and collective strategy. The format generates suspense, surprise and conversation, opening space for new affinities and potential collaborations.

We would like to warmly thank all the participants for their enthusiasm and generous spirit of play. Our deepest gratitude goes to Chiara Cordone, Rocco Belosi, Sonia Belfiore and to the entire Artissima team, for their trust, support and for making Mundialito possible.