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15/1/2003

History and nature

IVAM Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia

Curators: Kosme de Baranano and M Jesús Folch

Following the line opened by the IVAM on art and territory, now we present the Art Spaces of the Fattoria di Celle, a Giulano Gori's project, specially dedicated to the creation of site specific sculptures based on the bi-directional interaction between site and work.
Between scale models, preparatory drawings and showings, this exhibition at the IVAM presents around 75 projects that were made in the gardens, farm lands and old transformed barns of the the Fattoria di Celle, a Renaissance villa close to Santomato de Pistoia, in the heart of the Italian Tuscany. This exhibition also shows a selection of around 30 works from the funds of this historic collection that includes pieces of artists like De Chirico, Savinio, Boccioni, Morandi, Calder, Moore, Licini, Fontana, Morris Louis, and Klein, Miró, Tàpies or Kemeny, among others. On occasion of the exhibition the IVAM is publishing a catalogue with all the works showed and texts of Kosme de Barañano, Giulano Gori, Angela Vettese, María Jesús Folch and Carmen Bernárdez.

The Gori Collection
Giuliano Gori, Italian industrialist born in Prato in 1930, has been since his youth, putting together a collection of modern and contemporary art. Altogether with his collection of historic pieces, that includes from a Christ of the XIIIth Century Florentine School to works of artists like Picasso, Morandi, Leger or Klee, his most recent contribution has been the creation of a sculpture park in his villa in Santomato de Pistoia: the Fattoria di Celle.
From 1956, Gori starts a new period as a contemporary art collector. He was captivated by Venice, its Biennale and the All' Angelo's café artistic atmosphere created around the art critic Giuseppe Marchori. Marchori would become a direct information source that would influence greatly in his ways as a collector. Soon his house in Prato would become a meeting place for artists and intellectuals with frequent visits of Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore and Alberto Mandadori, among others. And it was trough this direct dialogue between artist and collector that Gori creates the guidelines of his collection.

A visit to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in 1961 made a great impresión in Gori, who went there with the aim of finding out the reason for the inspiration of artists such as Picasso, Miró o Gaudí. The Catalan Romanesque artworks were displayed in a environment that pretended to rebuild the original setting, so Gori realized, by the very first time, that the space and the environment should form an indissoluble unity. That idea became strong in the collector´s mind, who finally confirmed his desire to develop a project devoted to Oriental Art after visiting the Venecia Biennale ( 1976) and the Kassel Documenta ( 1977). The first attempts in this field were showed in these two shows. From that moment, Gori starts considering seriously the fact of a environmental art collection focused on site specific projects in his villa, his gardens, definitely, in his home. The main objective was the permanence in time and space terms if that kind of artworks. And this novel concept should underlie in the own creative process.

In 1981 Gori started a committee with contemporary art experts like Ammon Bazel, Renato Barilli, Francesco Gurrieri, Dr. Knud Jensen and Prof. Manfred Schneckenburger, with the intention of offering the space and gardens of his property the "Fattoria di Celle" located in the Pistoia Hills, to place and start artistic projects connected to the territory, under Carlo Belli's slogan: "art's rights start where nature's rights end".

In June 1982 started the first 15 installations, nine at the villa's gardens and six in the inner rooms. In the gardens were located works of artists like Robert Morris, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alan Sonfist, Richard Serra, Alice Aycock, Dennis Oppenheim and the Italians Mauro Staccioli, Giuseppe Spagnulo and Fabricio Corneli. Enrico Castellani and Richard Long connect with their works the outer and inner spaces, giving way to the artists whose works can be seen in the villa's rooms: Emilio Vedova, Giuseppe Chiari, Luciano Ori, Gianni Ruffi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro and Guiseppe Penone, among many others.

The Exhibition
The itinerary starts with Giuliano Gori's historic collection and its later evolution towards environmental art, showing in first place a series with the works accommodated in the main building of the Fattoria di Celle, where Gori has his main residence. Then, before coming into the sculptoric park, the visitor can contemplate the projects in the old villa's barns. Finally, visitors find the environmental art projects, which are organized in two sections. In the lower level are the works placed in the villa's romantic park, designed by Gambini during the first half of the XIX century. Here, works have been placed maintaining the artificial environment created by Gambini. In the upper level are the projects of the farm land of the Fattoria di Celle whose installation require a direct intervention on the environment. In both sections, the site specific projects are presented altogether with the keys to allow the visitor the comprehension of the aims and meanings of the art works interacting with the environment that surrounds them. To explore, to embrace, to surround, to touch the works in the park, is what this exhibition intends to communicate the visitor, and in consequence, each section will be complemented with a screen to give a three-dimensional vision to caress the works in the space with its mobility.

The lower level works are organized in four categories: Experience, Mechanism, Space and Shape, and Imagination.

Experience
This section includes site specific works from artists like Karavan, Trakas, Kosuth, Ruckreim, Solano and Neuhaus, that require an intense interaction from the visitor for the creative process of the art work to reach its peak.

Mechanism
This section holds works by Oppenheim, Aycock and Gerard, that have a conceptual link with the science field.

Space and form
This section refers to basic concepts that are explored through the works of Staccioli, Serra, Pan, Lewitt, Corneli and Morris/Parmiggiani.

Imagination
This section includes the works of artists like Poirier, Spagnulo, Lanu, Morris, Pepper, Folon, Golba and Nagasawa, works that start a conversation with the unconscious referring to an irrational, hidden sfere.

The upper floor galleries are organized in categories like Confrontation, Mark or Alignment. Confrontation shows the produccion of artists that have chosen for their interventions a place outside the park designed by Gambini: Finlay, Inoue, Abakanowicz, Miyawaki, Burri and Sonfist.
The works included under the title of Mark have the connotation of a personal and historical mark. The artists represented in this category are Kadishman, Cor, Barni, A.R.Penck and Breidenbruch.
Alignment holds the works off Plensa, Long and Castellani and reproduces in the site the alienated presence of part of the missing components causing an intense necessity of search and reflection.

Image: M. Abakanowicz, Katarsis, 1985

Organized by: IVAM, Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

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