In Venice, FAI brings collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo's Wunderkammer to exhibition

On the occasion of the 58th Venice Biennale, FAI - Fondo Ambiente Italiano presents the exhibition Wunderkammer Panza di Biumo. The art of small objects 1966-1992, from June 12 to October 27, 2019 at the Negozio Olivetti in Piazza San Marco in Venice. The exhibition, curated by Anna Bernardini and Pietro Caccia Dominioni, brings together in the store designed by Carlo Scarpa for Adriano Olivetti in 1958 a series of curious small objects: maquettes, tools, mechanical inventions, rarities that Milanese patron Giuseppe Panza di Biumo (Milan, 1923 - 2010) collected or received as gifts from the artists closest to his heart. The selected objects, executed over a period of time from 1966 to 1992, belong, for the most part, to the leading exponents of Minimalism and Conceptual Art: from Walter De Maria to Carl Andre, from Robert Morris to Richard Nonas, from Dan Flavin to Joseph Beuys, to Robert Barry, Ian Wilson, Jene Highstein, Piero Fogliati, Douglas Davis and Eric Orr. Some of the artists recur in the Panza Collection that FAI curates, preserves and enhances in Varese, Italy, at the Villa Panza di Biumo, which was the collector’s private home and is now an FAI Asset, open to the public since 2000.

The more than 40 exhibits on display (works, studies, projects and models of installations and artistic creations that can be interpreted as the “first originals,” in that they are the immediate translation of the artist’s creative idea) renew the opportunity to investigate the interests and research of the collector Panza di Biumo, who was attracted to artistic trends aimed at placing the concept of idea at the center of practice: space understood as an active void with Joel Shapiro ’s Untitled ( Chair) and Untitled ( Maquette for Table) or Walter De Maria ’s Untitled (8 Wedges) or Richard Nonas’ Varese Cut-Off (House Pets), the purity of light and matter with Carl Andre’s Brass Square Piece, color with Dan Flavin ’s Print Series (Blue/Dark 17/25, Yellow/Purple 17/25, Green/Red 4/25) or the constant experimentation with new technologies such as Fogliati ’s Anemofono and F. M. Carrier Wave by Robert Barry. Indeed, the work for Panza represents the expression and visualization of man’s highest faculty, thought, and geometry is the medium used by this art that reflects the mind’s ability to order reality. The ways in which order is achieved are then infinite: curved lines, angles, volumes that can be used in an unlimited number of variations where imagination and creativity have freedom to manifest themselves.

The works on display at the Negozio Olivetti recount and reveal the attention Giuseppe Panza paid to certain artists who produced small objects, a true reversal of his well-known collecting interest of the 1960s and 1970s. This art, which he called “the art of small objects,” expressed an attitude centered on intimacy, the private and the individual as opposed to what was visible and public: “This art comes back into vogue,” Giuseppe Panza said in 2010, “especially in comparison to the large installations of questionable quality that are in fashion today and that are completely the opposite of those of the 1960s.” The osmosis with the spaces, the perfect geometries, the spasmodic attention to detail, and the gentle light effects of marble and Murano glass of Scarpa’s architecture welcome the small objects, set up on stands designed to display Olivetti typewriters, like discreet and precious apparitions in a “chamber of wonders” in the exhibition.

The exhibition design is by Scandurra Studio Architettura, Milan.

The exhibition catalog will be published by Skira.

For all information you can either call +39 041 5228387 or send an email to fainegoziolivetti@fondoambiente.it or visit the official FAI website.

Pictured: Dan Flavin, Print Series (1996). Ph credit: Alessandro Zambianchi

Source: press release

In Venice, FAI brings collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo's Wunderkammer to exhibition

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