Catalogue

After serving as the Kunsthalle Bern’s youngest-ever director, and as the general secretary of documenta 5 (Kassel, 1972), Harald Szeemann severed his ties with the institutional world, taking a radically different approach to the form and content of exhibitions by expanding their focus to include not just the modern art on display, but also private and historical considerations conveyed through the very layout of the exhibition itself.This brief essay, based on historic documentation, interviews and previously unpublished notes found in the Szeemann archives in Lucerne, analyses a series of exhibits conceived of by the Swiss curator in the seventies, but never actually held, and in particular that entitled “La Mamma”.Part of a trilogy (“Le macchine celibi”, “La Mamma” and “Il Sole”), the project drew on a variety of disciplines, including history, religion, the visual arts, theosophy and feminism, as well as literature, psychoanalysis and anthropology, all for the sake of creating an exhibit with no art, but rather devoted to the study of women, to the evolution of the maternal figure and to the general idea of a female divinity.

«Architects must be in touch with living, because living is everything»: words that would appear to have been on Lina Bo Bardi’s mind as early as 1946, when boarded a ship to Rio de Janeiro, her eyes filled with curiosity and her mind open, leaving behind the ruins of an Italy devastated by war. Travelling inside her were both Achillina, the impertinent girl marked by her disdain for the social mores and rules of her time, and Lina Bo, the young, tenacious professional who, following her university studies under Marcello Piacentini in Rome, went to Milan to fight for her independence in a world of men, becoming Deputy Director of Domus magazine while winning the esteem of Gio Ponti, Bruno Zevi and her future husband, Pietro Maria Bardi.Translating into thought and practice an existence in constant flux, Lina gave full expression to her original voice as an architect, designer, curator and set designer in Brazil. Her best known buildings – the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, the Casa de Vidro, and the SESC Pompéia centre – reflect a focus on the collective, on ties to nature and folk traditions, making for extremely modern, unconventional architecture.The result of twenty years of research, Zeuler R. Lima’s portrait grasps the complexity of a woman who shunned the beaten path, journeying through her own contradictions without hesitation, tossed back and forth between her revolutionary impulses and the incurable melancholy of her soul. The author does not shy away from the more sombre side of her life, inevitably visible even in the photo of Lina on the deck of the ship on which she crossed the Atlantic, in keeping with the epithet coined for her by Valentino Bompiani, “the tired goddess”: a solitary rebel whose intellectual legacy is more alive today than ever.

A sense of euphoria and invigorating plenty pervade the world of Jeff Koons and his body of work addressing the allure of mass-consumer goods, banal objects whose almost erotic enticement is further heightened by his use of mirror-like materials that turn the pieces into voluptuous temptresses who seek to seduce viewers by getting them to heed the same siren song which they themselves purvey.As brilliant and intense as his sculptures, Koons talks about himself and his work during these conversations with Massimiliano Gioni, held between 2018 and 2021. The interviewer’s critical insight prompts the artist to review key chapters of his past, from his childhood in Pennsylvania to his encounter with Duchamp, from his travels in Italy in search of the most skilled ceramics craftsmen to his recent commissions in Paris and Qatar. The underlying philosophy to art, which combines avant-garde tradition with an outlook of openness and acceptance of the world at large, is laid bare. Embracing a typically American form of eccentricity, Koons accepts his own history, taste and desires, even. His freedom from any distinction between high and low culture allows him to draw with equal ease from both home appliance stores and Italian renaissance art, with which he has always dealt on an equal footing. In total freedom.

The travel dairies of esteemed figures who took the Grand Tour, such as the explorer and Etruscan scholar George Dennis, the watercolour artist Samuel James Ainsley, and Elizabeth Hamilton Gray, a pioneering nineteenth-century female scholar of Etruria, still contribute to the study of Etruscan civilisation and the sites that were its cradle. But before these illustrious individuals came Wilhelm Dorow, a diplomat at the court of Frederick William III of Prussia, an historian, a man of letters and an orientalist, but first and foremost an archaeologist and collector of antiquities. In fact, he was one of the first to visit the cities of ancient Etruria with a scholarly focus, documenting the artistic and archaeological treasures of the hinterlands of Siena and Arezzo, between Cortona, Chiusi and Arezzo.Dorow’s notebook, published almost twenty years in advance of George Dennis’s celebrated The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, is a key source for the history of Etruscan studies and the collection of antiquities. This Italian edition, translated from the French version of 1829, comes complete with the sixteen original prints. Dedicated to Bertel Thorvaldsen, with whom Dorow corresponded over the years, and who had words of praise for his collection, the notebook documents a trip that Dorow began from Florence in the summer of 1827.Accompanied by Squire Francesco Inghirami - author of, among other works, the imposing illustrated volume Monumenti Etruschi - and by the artist Giuseppe Lucherini, whose task it was to portray the ancient artefacts, Dorow’s in-depth knowledge of the Italian context sets his account apart from those of his English contemporaries, thanks to sharp, precise insights that, even today, are of great use to archaeologists. His descriptions of visits to the places where the most important Etruscan artefacts are found, and to the leading private collections of Etruscan antiquities, are rendered all the more thorough by Lucherini’s painstakingly detailed drawings. What emerges is an overview of Etruria in the 19th century, highlighting Dorow’s invaluable contribution to reconstructing the history of the collections and their destinies, and all this in the decisive years when mere curiosity for Etruscan antiquities was evolving into serious scholarship.

Following the showing of Seurat’s ground-breaking La Grande-Jatte at the last impressionist exhibition, an unknown Dutchman by the name of Vincent van Gogh arrived in Paris, eager to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the city’s ferment to anyone willing to strike out on new paths. The year was 1886, and Cézanne, Bernard, Pissarro, Redon, Seurat and Signac, all driven by their impetuous yearning for an independent style, were exploring new visions by forsaking naturalism for daring colours and a more abstract, symbolist outlook.Here begins John Rewald’s exploration, which sets off on a number of paths as it follows a generation of painters, the postimpressionists, who turned their backs on the heritage of their immediate past. Standing out from the rest were Van Gogh and Gauguin, to whom the author gives a leading role in his kaleidoscopic overview, as letters, first-hand accounts and reviews of the time offer a vivid, intense look at their existential and artistic arcs, their friendship and their clashes, their demons and their ideals, presenting the reader with all the splendour and fury of a fatal but enthralling moment.A fitting sequel to his acclaimed The History of Impressionism, John Rewald’s historical account concludes in 1893, with the return of Gauguin from his first trip to Tahiti. Paris is the same tumultuous city that had welcomed Van Gogh seven years earlier, and Gauguin once again dives into its vibrant atmosphere, drawing on all his courage to face the new challenges of the future, at the start of an era which does not hesitate to announce the dawn of 20th-century art.

In this lucid and concise essay, David Levi Strauss explores the relation between truth and photography. Based on the assumption that "we only need to see in order to believe", Levi Strauss examines the figure of Saint Thomas in the Gospels, investigates the relation between faith and the Holy Shroud – considered by some scholars as the first proto-photographic image in history –, and discusses the contributions to the subject by critics and philosophers such as Walter Benjamin, John Berger and Roland Barthes.A relevant portion of the book is dedicated to the writings of Vilém Flusser and his “technical images” and to the intersection of magic and technology, while the last chapter is a reflection on contemporary times: in a world inhabited by deepfake, how has the relation between faith and photography evolved? Can we still believe images?

Ando Gilardi is hailed as the most irreverent photographer and academic to come out of Italy in the last century. In this brief essay in the form of a dialogue, Gilardi, author of cult books on photography and a truly eclectic figure, makes a mischievous and amusing foray into the concept of stupidity in the photographic realm, starting out from the fabled laws on this very subject formulated by the economist Carlo M. Cipolla.The text is accompanied by around 30 images of nineteenth century photography on the theme of stupidity taken from the immense photographic archive - Fototeca Storica Nazionale – founded by Gilardi himself.

While deep in sleep, we inhabit spaces where sounds, images and people around us appear vivid and tangible. But once we open our eyes, the spell lifts and these folly- and wonder-tainted visions turn out to be no more than a dream. Something similar also occurs during virtual reality simulations, those multisensorial experiences in which the course of events can be simply interrupted by removing the headset from one’s eyes, just like suddenly waking up.The worlds of dream and of virtual reality have far more in common than one would think: both revolve around a subjective point of view, and above all both engage an aesthetic relation with images, a dimension that begins to be investigated in the 1800s – a time that more than others focused on revealing the workings of our dreams – and that in the advent of digital technology has found its fullest and most complete realization. At the centre of this framework is cinema, the art that in the 20th century expressed and gave form to human fantasies and nightmares, channelling the immersive experience out of the rigid bidimensional quality of the screen, “piercing” its surface like Buster Keaton in one of his most famous films.This book sheds light on what the early sensational landscapes and cycloramas have in common with the new media art of Zoe Beloff and Char Davies, on how Mickey Mouse goes hand in hand with Cocteau and Kurosawa, and on how modern VR devices can be considered an evolution of sleep masks: the author presents us with an archaeological approach to the history of media and to the concept of immersivity inviting us to recognise a new type of artistic horizon, projected beyond mere visual data.

One of the most famous American petrol industrialists and “richest man of America” from 1950 to 1970, J. Paul Getty was above everything else an insatiable art and antiques collector. Getty started collecting in the 1930s and continued compulsively throughout his entire life, despite having many times tried to stop, as he recounts in his autobiography As I See It. The Joys of Collecting by Getty is a short book in which the author recalls a number of personal anecdotes – revolving around a series of highly representative pieces of antiques, furniture and paintings –, explains his art-collecting philosophy, offers advice, and recalls his greatest successes, encouraging novice collectors to face the perils and hazards of art collecting and, regardless of budget limitations, enjoy the thrill, the drive and sense of adventure he himself enjoyed so much.  If the personal pleasure of laying hands on an artwork is a major component of Getty’s narrative, this book is also about his genuine faith in the civilising influence exerted by great artworks and the importance of sharing them with the public: “Banal as it may sound in this glib and brittle age, the beauty that one finds in fine art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of all human endeavour. That beauty endures even though nations and civilizations crumble; the work of art can be passed on from generation to generation and century to century, providing a historical continuity of true value.” It was his wish that his private collection would become the J. Paul Getty Museum of Malibu.   Translated by Elena Balzano.

There was once an impostor. There was once Paolo Ventura, photographer, painter, and set and costume designer. There was once because this autobiography is actually a fairy tale in which every reader will find something of their own story, their childhood and their city, if they were born in Milan, and Milan equals one hundred years of Italian life. There was once a child who went to eat at his aunt and uncle’s every Sunday and after lunch dreamt of vanishing like a ghost. And he must have wanted to be a ghost at home as well, when he was punished by his father, a talented illustrator but also a cruel wizard. There was once a boy who did poorly in school and escaped into a world of battles, trenches and soldiers on the front – an escape through drawing. As in all fairy tales, there were also good guys – the grandmother Giulia, who dresses the dead and teaches love, and Andrew, the twin brother, one of nature’s enchantments. And then there is Kim, and she is everything, a new beginning. The last time Paolo said “There was once” was when he left Paris, where he worked as a fashion photographer, and ended up in New York, entering the dark forest of the metropolis with nothing.  Far away, Paolo thought he was safe. And instead, one fragment after another penetrated the memory castle, terrible as war, gentle as the arrival of a circus on the outskirts of town. When he came out, it was day. There was once a fairy tale about the birth of an artist.There are 35 unrealsed coloured paintings.

The whale is an animal that appears only to those who wait: a colossal, glistening creature that, like Moby Dick, hides from sight, “avoiding both hunters and philosophers.” Sudden, fateful encounters with the whale can occur at sea, or in craggy Apennine ravines, or in a museum, or while gazing at stars. Over the centuries, the whale has been both a mythological monster and an inspiration for tales, both a foodstuff and an object of worship. In short, an image that obsessively swallows things into its belly. Whales first fascinated artist Claudia Losi in 2004, setting in motion efforts that were focused, through various forms and initiatives, on a life-size travelling whale made of grey wool fabric. This living event, Balena Project, toured different parts of the world, attracting stories, absorbing suggestions, constantly changing its appearance.The Whale Theory, the final leg of the journey, is its literary manifestation. An artist’s book, it contains strange and secret marvels, also serving as a compass for the lengthy poetic experience, which it retraces with illustrations, photographs and texts. Inside are various expert contributions and perspectives, plus a chorus of voices that harmoniously blend in the whale’s song.Having taken her deep dive, Claudia Losi allows herself to be gracefully swallowed up, returning with a marine geography of words and visions that have nourished the archetype of the whale, both in her private imagery and in the mind of the general public. The result is a hymn to the mystery of this massive inhabitant of the depths, and to the stories of whales that have accompanied our history as human beings.Texts by: Christopher Collins, Matteo Meschiari, Vinicio Capossela, Jean Rezzonico, Jean D’Yvoire, Gianni Pavan, Silvia Bottani, Tore Teglbjaerg, Mauro Sargiani, Petra Aprile, Sunaura Taylor, Gioia Laura Iannilli, Jurg Slabbert, Kate Pocklington, Philip Hoare.Translated by William Lee.

The heirs to a textile dynasty whose social rise is the stuff of legend, the Morozov brothers certainly did not go unnoticed. Cultured, sophisticated and unconventional at the same time, they enchanted the Muscovite intelligentsia with their eccentricities. Fashionably dressed and surrounded by femmes fatales, gambling and living in mansions whose architectural styles were eclectic to say the least, they were art lovers and above all collectors.Mikhail was the first to take an interest in the new school of French painting. After his premature death, Ivan followed in his footsteps and developed what was soon to be an overriding passion. From 1904 on, he left his factories whenever possible to visit the most fashionable Parisian art dealers but seldom allowed them to dazzle him with their offers. He had a very clear idea of the works he wanted and of how to display them in the rooms of his stately home. He displayed matchless patience in the obsessive hunt for the finest works of his favourite masters and – according to Vollard, who called him “the Russian who doesn’t bargain” – never counted the pennies. In the space of a few years, he built up a superb collection including works by the Impressionists, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso and the finest Russian painters of the period, every bit as good as that of his compatriot Sergei Shchukin, whose sad fate it was to share after the Russian Revolution.The masterpieces that adorned the walls of the mansion at 21 Prechistenka were confiscated by the state, divided like playing cards between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and left to gather dust in the storerooms of museums for decades before coming to constitute the core of the modern art departments of the Hermitage and the Pushkin. The collection is now restored to its original splendour by Natalya Semyonova, who rescues the extraordinary figure of Ivan Morozov from the oblivion into which he was plunged by this twist of fate with all the verve of a novelist.