Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu started collecting Italian Art right after they met, towards the end of the 1980s. However, for both, the passion for Art had already started independently. Olnick, an American from New York, loved Pop Art while Spanu, an Italian with Sardinian origins, was interested in European Modern Art.
Although she was mainly drawn to American Art at that time, Olnick has always been passionate about Italy, from design to fashion, to fine art in all of its forms. Spanu owes to Olnick his reconciliation, not only with Italian Art, but also with the country that he had left towards the end of the 1970s.
Murano glass was the real turning point for both of them. While picking-up catalogues at an auction house in New York, a beautiful object caught Olnick’s attention: a cobalt blue and emerald green hourglass by Paolo Venini. It was part of a sale of decorative art objects. Olnick found that hourglass so special that they decided to place a bid. When the auction house notified them that they had won the lot, they placed the hourglass next to Andy Warhol’s Flowers in their residence in New York City. This marked the beginning of Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection. Murano opened the way to ceramics, artistic jewelry, design and, of course, Italian Art from the second part of the 20th century as well as contemporary Italian Art.
Their first encounter with Arte Povera was at the beginning of the 1990s when, Sauro Bocchi, the Roman art dealer with Modenese origins, and a dear friend of the couple who recently passed away, suggested to Olnick and Spanu that they visit Castello di Rivoli and its wonderful collection. The masterpieces of Arte Povera captured the interest of the couple right away. Thus, they started studying the movement in depth and later decided to exclusively collect Italian Art for their residence in Garrison, New York, designed by the Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza. Quismondo was the Project Manager for the Garrison home and eventually became the architect who designed Magazzino Italian Art.
A major obstacle that Olnick and Spanu had to face while collecting Arte Povera was the large size of some of the artworks, which were not easily placed in a house with glass walls. When deciding to find an appropriate place to exhibit their Italian Art collection, the idea of Magazzino Italian Art was born. The goal today is to share their experience and knowledge of these artists and their works with a public who may not be familiar with this kind of Italian artistic production.
As Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu state: “We wanted to feel the works we were collecting and have a constant dialogue with them. Magazzino Italian Art gives us not only this possibility but also permits us to share our passion with our guests. Magazzino has about 2,000 square meters of exhibition space. In addition, we aim to develop wide educational programming. We already have a library of more than 5,000 volumes of publications and archive material that will soon be available for research.”
The building that hosts Magazzino Italian Art consists of an existing facility – originally designed to be an agriculture warehouse then turned into a dairy factory and more recently into a computer factory – that has been converted within a wider project conceived and guided by Spanish architect Miguel Quismondo. The size of the previous building was doubled by turning the original L-shaped building into a rectangle and by keeping the central courtyard, creating a strong dialogue between the two buildings.
The current exhibition, Arte Povera: From the Olnick Spanu Collection opened on March 1, 2018. The exhibition offers a wide overview of the artistic production of 12 artists associated with the Arte Povera movement: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio.
Initially associated with the group of the Arte Povera movement, a term that was created in 1967 by Germano Celant to describe a kind of art that used materials and techniques that were in contrast with the artistic production of that time, these artists then developed individual artistic paths and made precise expressive choices. The Arte Povera movement is an Italian movement that corresponds to very specific geographic and historic characteristics. The artists that were part of this movement share a strong bond with the history of Italian Art; however, they developed a strong opposition toward the concept of traditional art, by opposing the values imposed by social, political and industrial institutions of that time as well as the way art was offered on the market. United by the mantra Art is life, their research aimed at breaking down the barriers among media and between art and nature.
Margherita Christian Stein was the muse of this movement. She was not only a collector but also an art dealer from Turin, Italy to whom Magazzino Italian Art dedicated its inaugural exhibition in June 2017. “We wanted to use her real name, Margherita, although she wanted to be called by her husband’s name, Christian, in order to be better accepted and respected by the Italian cultural elite of the 1960s,” states Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu.
Thanks to her devotion, passion and aesthetic sensitivity, Margherita Christian Stein managed to affirm herself as one of the protagonists of her time. The first exhibition at Magazzino Italian Art, Margherita Stein: Rebel with a Cause (June 28, 2017 – January 15, 2018), was a tribute to the vision, courage and to the commitment with which this incredible Signora of Italian Art supported her artists for over forty years, many of the same artists who are part of the Olnick Spanu Collection today. Also included in the exhibition was the work of Marco Bagnoli, Domenico Bianchi and Remo Salvadori, who belong to the generation that followed the Arte Povera movement and who were, at the time, represented by Margherita Christian Stein and that continue to be represented by Galleria Christian Stein in Milan.
Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu are also the founders of the Olnick Spanu Art Program. The program, which began in 2003 thanks to Giorgio Vigna and includes site-specific works commissioned to contemporary Italian artists. The goal of the program is to promote Italian contemporary artists in the United States and the works conceived for the program are installed on the grounds surrounding the Garrison residence. Every year for ten years, Nancy and Giorgio have invited an artist for a residency in Garrison. After coming into contact with the area and the rich natural resources of the Hudson Valley, and after having been inspired by the site for their art, the artists go back to Italy to create a work of art. The finished artwork is then installed permanently in Garrison and presented to the public during the summer months. Giorgio Vigna, Massimo Bartolini, Mario Airo’, Domenico Bianchi, Remo Salvadori, Stefano Arienti, Bruna Esposito, Marco Bagnoli, Francesco Arena and Paolo Canevari all participated in the Art Program.
The Olnick Spanu Art Program has been temporarily suspended in order to facilitate the construction and opening of Magazzino Italian Art. However, Olnick and Spanu continue to support contemporary artists and increase exposure through collaborations with both local and international institutions such as: Documenta 14 (Athens: April 8 – July 16, 2017) and the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (May 13 – November 26, 2017) with works by Maria Lai and Melissa McGill; the Italian Cultural Institute (October 4 – November 2, 2017) and the Instituto Cervantes in New York (June 26, 2017) with an exhibition of photography by Marco Anelli; the presentation of the book, Building Magazzino, published by Rizzoli; the exhibition at the Garrison Art Center with works by Marco Bagnoli, Domenico Bianchi and Remo Salvadori (March 10 – April 8, 2018); the presentation at Magazzino of Italian Art of NYsferatu Symphony of a Century (September 15, 2017), a silent movie by Andrea Mastrovito; the current exhibition by Alessandro Piangiamore, Marango (May 1 – June 14, 2018) at NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’; and with the loan of artworks by Maria Lai (1919–2013) for the exhibition organized by Galleria degli Uffizi of Florence, curated by Elena Pontiggia and running through June 3, 2018 at the Andito degli Angiolini located inside the Pitti Palace in Florence.
1413 Views |
1