With Alvar Aalto, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Etel Adnan, Vincenzo Agnetti, Mirella Bentivoglio, Luca Bertolo, Max Bill, Lina Bo Bardi, Anna Boghiguian, Vlasēs Kaniarēs, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Vaginal Davis, Paolo De Poli, Mirtha Dermisache, Tarsila do Amaral, Thea Djordjadze, Aref El Rayess, Chung Eun-Mo, Barbara Hammer, Tamara Henderson, Bruno Jakob, Fernand Léger, Jochen Lempert, Leoncillo, Mathieu Mategot, Tony Matelli, Sadamasa Motonaga, Bruno Munari, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, Milena Muzquiz, Ron Nagle, Yoichi Ohira, Erik Olovsson/Studio E.O, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Giulio Paolini, Gio Ponti, Peter Regli, Lin May Saeed, Andrea Sala, Gino Sarfatti, Martin Soto Climent, Ettore Sottsass, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Mario Ticcò, Alvaro Urbano, Cecilia Vicuña, Alfredo Volpi, Andro Wekua, Franz West, Tapio Wirkkala, Liuba Wolf, Ruth-Wolf Rehfeldt

Join us for the opening on Friday, January 24, at 5:00 pm.

La Collectionneuse is an exhibition that grew out of an invitation to develop a project on the basis of Silvia Fiorucci’s collection. It is a show without any other theme than the idea of a collection as a portrait of a person. While based on a selection of works carried out by Silvia Fiorucci, La Collectionneuse aims to evoke the figure of an imaginary collector. Unlike public institutions, private collections reflect the tastes and interests of an individual, although the collector often aspires to turn them into a shared resource, ultimately restoring them to the community.  In this sense, the criteria that determine their constitution can be absolutely variable, whether these are formal, conceptual or personal. In the words of the famous maxim by Goethe, “collectors are happy people”.  

In choosing the works to be displayed, I adopted a similar approach, opting for those that differ in terms of language, geography and imaginary aspects, following an intuitive and associative approach. The exhibition has been conceived as a composition, a mise-en-scène aimed at transforming the Quai’s space into a domestic environment in which design objects, paintings, sculptures, drawings and carpets are freely juxtaposed to suggest the wunderkammer – cabinet of curiosities – of the collector. While the usual way of exhibiting works in a museum is intended to convey some self-proclaimed neutrality and objectivity, here we have sought to create a total environment that requires no explanation and where those who enter are invited to let their curiosity guide them.

The walls of the entire exhibition space have been covered with long strips of plain fabric resembling theatrical backdrops where the works are displayed in a manner recalling 19th-century salons, in stark opposition to the white cube approach. The intention is for the exhibition to be experienced as one large installation, a gesamtkunstwerk – total artwork – where any attempt to categorize or define is negated to create a deliberately elusive exhibition device.  

The image chosen for the invitation is a reproduction of a work by Swiss artist Bruno Jakob who, since the 1970s, has been carrying out research that questions our faith in images and visual evidence. His on-going series Invisible Paintings challenges the true nature of appearance to highlight how images do not need to be visible to be real. Unseen (Portraits, Somebodies) (Invisible Drawing) from 1998 amounts to a perfect manifesto for the exhibition. It is a portrait made by simply applying water to a sheet of paper to create a simulacrum. The possibility of imagining someone from such an abstract trace fits perfectly with the exhibition project’s attempt to convey a portrait of a collector.  

Background music, exhibition invitations scattered in a basket and accessories, all appear as both scenic and narrative props that invite each visitor to imagine in their own way the figure of this imaginary collector, together with her tastes and obsessions. The layout of the works is deliberately dense in order to make the space resemble at once a collector’s house, a salon and an atelier.  

A work of art, once in the hands of a private individual, becomes an object of affection that does not have to meet the criteria of cultural appreciation and study as it would in a museum, but exists solely in accordance with the wishes of the person who owns it. Thus they may decide to display a work in an unusual space (such as the bathroom), hang a painting above a sofa based solely on their respective colors, use a sculpture as an everyday utensil, or personalize a work through a whimsical frame or display unit. In such a situation, there are no rules, there is no consistency to respect, and everything is subjective.  

A collection is open to the interference of coincidences, influences, encounters, mistakes or mental interpretations, making it a corpus that is both progressive and imperfect. A collection can be seen as a filter between an individual and the world around them. From this perspective, it is a way of assembling knowledge that is neither scientific nor linear, but deeply intuitive. Any personal assemblage of works is a microcosm for society but a macrocosm for its owner. Collecting is an activity that is a potential source of deep personal satisfaction, but the setting in which this activity takes place can vary considerably. In French, there is a clear difference between the verbs ‘collectionner’ and ‘collecter’. The former suggests intentionality, an awareness in the act of putting together objects (whether art or not), whereas the latter has a more concrete, practical meaning.  

Every private collection is an autobiography, the fruit of contingencies, encounters, and whims that are unrelated to any form of canon, including that of history or the museum. Such is the essence of this exhibition, which is a small world, a kaleidoscope of styles, languages and research that are seemingly far apart, but which resonate with each other. Among these we find experimentation with ceramics (Ron Nagle, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess), glass (Tapio Wirkkala, Mario Ticcò, Yoichi Ohira), language (Vincenzo Agnetti, Mirella Bentivoglio, Mirtha Dermisache, Ruth-Wolf Rehfeldt), design and architecture (Alvar Aalto, Max Bill, Gio Ponti, Ettore Sottsass, Gino Sarfatti, Lina Bo Bardi), together with small signs of affection (Alexander Calder, Leoncillo Leonardi, Fausto Melotti, Bruno Munari), splendid indoor objects (Fernand Léger’s carpet, Franz West’s chair), works by more unorthodox figures (Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Vaginal Davis, Barbara Hammer) and echoes of cultures both near and far (Anna Boghiguian, Vlassis Caniaris, Tarsila do Amaral, I Gusti Ayu Kadek Murniasih, Cecilia Vicuña, Alfredo Volpi).  

The selected works and the setting in which they are shown develop a narrative in which the original function and value of the individual items are transformed, turning the objects presented into signs that are capable of acquiring and generating other meanings.  

The exhibition as a collection is a storytelling device. As Susan Stewart writes, “The collection is a form of art as play, a form involving the reframing of objects within a world of attention and manipulation of context. Like other forms of arts, its function is not the restoration of context of origin but rather the creation of a new context.”  [On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Duke University Press, 1993.]

– Luca Lo Pinto –

BIOGRAPHY NOTES

Luca Lo Pinto is the Artistic Director of MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. From 2014 to 2019 he was curator at the Kunsthalle in Vienna. He is co-founder of the magazine and publishing house NERO. He has organised a series of solo exhibitions with artists such as Emilio Prini, Simone Forti, Nathalie du Pasquier, Jason Dodge, Tony Cokes, Camille Henrot, Olaf Nicolai, Friedl Kubelka, Pierre Bismuth, Babette Mangolte, Cinzia Ruggeri, Lawrence Weiner, Gelatin&Liam Gillick, Charlemagne Palestine and the group exhibitions Post Scriptum – A Museum Forgotten by Heart, In Prima Persona Plurale, Time is Thirsty, Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox 1989-2017, More Than Just Words, Individual Stories and Function Follows Vision, Vision Follows Reality. Other curatorial projects include I Am Only The Housekeeper, But I Don’t Know… (Plečnik House Museum, Ljubljana, Slovenia) Luca Vitone – Io, Luca (PAC), XVI Quadriennale d’Arte (Palazzo delle Esposizioni), Le Regole del gioco (Fondazione Achille Castiglioni), Trapped in the Closet (FRAC Champagne Ardenne, France), Antigrazioso (Palais de Tokyo, Paris), AnderSennoSogno (Museo H.C. Andersen), D’après Giorgio (Fondazione Giorgio De Chirico), and Conversation Pieces (Museo Praz). His writings have appeared in numerous international catalogues and magazines (including Flash Art, Kaleidoscope, Mousse, Purple, Spike, Rolling Stone, All In, and STXDYOZ). He has also edited publications with various artists, including Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Lisa Ponti, Mario Diacono and Mario Garcia Torres. In 2012 he edited the publication Documenta 1955-2012.