Rome's Recent Renaissance

LETTER FROM ROME With galleries and museums proliferating, the formerly conservative Italian capital is basking in its new role as a contemporary art center. By Jonathan Turner Rome’s Recent Renaissance 141 best known for its antiquities and ruins, Rome is experiencing like Antonio Battaglia of Milan, the LipanjePuntin Gallery of Trieste, a boom in contemporary art, and the emerging scene is so fresh that Trisorio of Naples and Brancolini Grimaldi of Florence—have opened most of it has not yet made it into the guidebooks. The Eternal City satellite shops in the capital. “As a contemporary gallery, it’s impor- is being reborn as a vibrant cultural center with the clout to attract tant to continually change your objectives,” says Cristina Lipanje, big-name artists, architects, dealers and collectors. For instance, codirector of LipanjePuntin, which inaugurated its new space last Maxxi, a vast museum of 21st-century art designed by Zaha Hadid year with sound sculptures by the composer Andrea Cera. “After a within the shell of a former army barracks, is currently nearing decade based in northern Italy, we saw that Rome offered us unex- completion, and next April a new major art fair will open at Palazzo pected possibilities and a great chance for experimentation. The Venezia and at Trajan’s Forum, linking 100 international contempo- sudden spurt in the growth of contemporary museums and the rary galleries to Rome’s ancient monuments. expansion of public interest have not happened in other parts of the The gallery scene is thriving, too, and a spate of sellout shows country. Plus we wanted to confront a new reality, a scene that emporanea, rome T holds the promise that Rome will fast appears more important, more open.” become a market force to rival Milan. In May This year in his new space near the e con T 2004 Raul Marinuzzi Ronconi inaugurated Tiber in Trastevere—a bustling villagelike Next Door Gallery with the first Roman solo neighborhood known for its colorful show of Massimo Vitali’s outsize photo- festivals—former Anthony d’Offay director graphs of summer vacation scenes. “After Lorcan O’Neill staged sellout shows of land- training at the Sotheby’s Institute in scapes by Anselm Kiefer and the androgynous London,” says Ronconi, “I realized that there self-portraits of Francesco Clemente. New was an opportunity to be seized in my native works by Tracey Emin were on view in the Rome, a city that seemed to have been lag- fall. Several established Roman galleries, ging behind since the Baroque. It was a including Ugo Ferranti and Pio Monti near esy maree azzopardi and galeria il pon T challenge both economically and culturally.” Piazza Navona and s.a.l.e.s. near the markets By staging slick shows of both local and at Piazza Vittorio, have moved into bigger and om: cour international artists, the gallery has quickly brighter quarters in the past year. The sisters Above: Mercati di tt Traiano will be offering won local fans and gained a reputation for Alessandra and Valentina Bonomo, who until Olivo Barbieri’s Site excellence. “It’s about instructing a formerly 2002 worked together in a single space in Specific Roma, 2004, at this Spring’s sleepy town, choosing artists who need to be Trastevere, have now doubled their force by FotoGrafia Festival. shown and showing them in a 21st-century, establishing two separate galleries in the Left: Shadow–The raiano, rome. Bo T state-of-the art gallery tucked inside a 17th- ancient center of the city. This past summer Girls, 2006, by i di Maree Azzopardi, T century palazzo,” he says. Alessandra had an impressive show of water- who is represented by Rome’s largest In response to the growing potential colors, drawings and bronzes of supermodel gallery, Il Ponte Top: merca of Rome, galleries from elsewhere in Italy— Kate Moss by British artist Marc Quinn. » contemporanea. WWW.ARTINFo.COM | novemBeR 2006 arT+aucTion LETTER FROM ROME Quadriennale was viewed as institutional and staid, but its past three editions have been critically acclaimed as refreshing and dynamic. In 2005 the XIV Quadriennale attracted more than 50,000 visitors. Valentina’s inaugural show in April 2002 in the heart of the former Meanwhile, each spring FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale di Roma Jewish ghetto featured paintings and sculptures by Mimmo Paladino is mounted in galleries and museums throughout the city. This year that evoke Italy’s ancient past. 200 photographers were featured in 120 exhibitions at 70 locations. The biggest private gallery in Rome is the expanded Il Ponte Each September Rome hosts a citywide event called La Notte Contemporanea, a space that has become a microcosm of the new Bianca. Museums, archaeological sites and galleries open their doors Roman art scene, where staff work closely with museums, curators, to the public for free, and this year more than 2 million people collectors, and both emerging and established artists. With room roamed the streets until dawn. Then there’s Riparte, marking its for several solo shows to run simultaneously, the gallery’s broad, 12th edition this month, an informal art fair held on two floors of the vaulted space accommodates a wide range of talent—Roman artist hip Ripa Hotel in Trastevere. Instead of using booths, each gallery Maurizio Mochetti’s sculptures and laser installations inspired by takes over a hotel room to promote its stable of artists. The event’s the concepts of velocity, flight and motorcar speedways; surreal burgeoning success confirms that an eager public is out there. explorations of the beauty myth by the Amsterdam-based photog- There is also a new generation of young museumgoers who rapher Fritz Kok; Roman artist Matteo Basilè’s expressive faces consider the visual arts a vital form of entertainment on a par with peering from lightboxes scratched with graffiti; and post- movies, bars and concerts. They flocked tomacro (Museo d’Arte Revolutionary sculptures by the Gao Brothers of China. The Gao Contemporanea di Roma), which opened in 2002. It is so ambitious Brothers and Basilè are on view in the gallery until mid-November. that its collection is spread over four buildings at two sites. “Our “One of the attractions of Rome is that it always remains true objective in the beginning was to create an institutional center that to itself,” says Giuliano Matricardi, director of Il Ponte Contem- would confront and accustom the public to contemporary art on a poranea, which has been a trailblazer of the art scene. In business for global level,” says director Danilo Eccher. 13 years but at its current, larger venue since 2005, the gallery occu- Last year 18 young Roman collectors, including Giovanni pies a series of vaulted rooms near the impressive Palazzo Farnese, Giuliani and Pino Calabresi, established an influential purchasing partly designed by Michelangelo. “Rome is not a carbon copy of any committee for the museum, called macroAmici. Under the auspices other city,” says Matricardi. “It is demonstrating a new quality, a of this association, the first donation was a piece in colored wax by remarkable ability to attract those who Domenico Bianchi, with other acquisitions want to be involved in contemporary art The gallery scene of works by Nunzio, Gianni Piacentino 142 and architecture.” and Gianni Dessì being discussed.» While other art capitals have is thriving, and a spate their biennials; Rome already has the of sell-out shows Quadri-ennale, which every four years holds the promise that aims to summarize the most important developments in Italian art. Formerly the Rome will fast become a market force to rival Milan. 2 1 - illem de koon W he T e; (2) © 2006 4 T ries (1) A partial view of T york; (3) galleria lorcan on’neill, rome; Andrea Cera’s installa- 3 W tion Undertones, 2005, y, ne at the Lapanje Puntin T Gallery; (2) Willem de Kooning’s Untitled IX, s socie T emporanea roma- 1982, currently on view T at the Carlo Bilotti s righ econ T Museum ; (3) Francesco T galleria, rome, 2006 is T Clemente’s Self- T in ar Portrait as an Owl, T un 2005, recently on view ion/ar p T door...ar e T at Lorcan O’Neill; J (4) Murderer, 2006, by ounda Nextdoor...art Galleria’s F ing (4) © nex Claudio Asquini. (1) lapan arT+aucTion novemBeR 2006 | WWW.ARTINFo.COM LETTER FROM ROME these international stars, the best-known artists of the younger Roman-born generation reveal the current diversity of activity in the city: the videos of Elisabetta Benassi, the free-form rubber sculp- Based on the vast collection amassed over more than 30 years tures of Paolo Canevari, the installations based on body by an Italian-American tycoon and philanthropist, the Carlo Bilotti transformations by Rocco Dubbini, the poetic realism of Andrea Museum opened in June in what was once the Villa Borghese’s Fogli and the meticulous, pixellated paintings of Cristiano Pintaldi. orangery. The modern refurbishment incorporates classical statuary While Fogli shows with Ugo Ferranti, Dubbini with Il Ponte and fountains. The inaugural show was centered around 18 works Contemporanea and Canevari with Studio Stefania Miscetti, many by Giorgio de Chirico from the 1930s to ’60s that were donated to of the younger artists do not have sole gallery representation but the city by Bilotti, as well as paintings that he commissioned from work on project-based exhibitions. Damien Hirst, David Salle and Jenny Saville. “Although I spend a lot Most celebrated for his distorted, expressionistic paintings of my time abroad, I wanted a permanent home in Rome for parts that were part of the Transavanguardia movement in the 1980s, of my collection, with an accent on major contemporary artists,” Enzo Cucchi is now acting as a catalyst for Rome’s emerging art says Bilotti.

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