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 Manfred Pernice, Sean Snyder, Mathieu Mercier, Jan De Cock, Tino Seghal, David Maljkovic, Haris Epaminonda, Ariel Schlesinger, Landon Metz.
2013 was an important year for the gallery that has celebrated 40 years of activity with a great publication 453-page book: Massimo Minini Quarantanni. 1973-2013, published by a+mbookstore, with drawings, letters, postcards, telegrams, photographs and invitations to the countless exhibitions and adventures that have been invented since 1973. From this book a very passionate exhibition has blossomed, “Forty Years of Contemporary Art. Massimo Minini 1973-2013”, a sweeping show to celebrate forty years of Galleria Minini at Triennale Museum in Milan.