Cultural decentralisation: collector Rosetta Barabino celebrated at Villa Croce (with a writing by Gian Enzo Sperone)

 

Everybody agrees that the same glass of Vermentino wine has a different taste when sipped in Genoa, instead of London, Paris or New York. A bottle can be exported, but not the air, the sky, the perfumes of the land where it comes from. That is why the exhibition, which will open next Saturday, dedicated to the visionary Genoese collector Rosetta Barabino by the Museo di Villa Croce, in Genoa, couldn’t have been set up in a better place; even if her fundamental 30-year-experience of collecting – started in 1968, when her husband passed away leaving her with three children and a pharmacy – would certainly be appreciated also by the audience of a main art capital, with leading museums. But those art enthusiasts who will take the chance to fly to Genoa from Paris, London or Berlin will not regret it, as this letter written by her mentor Gian Enzo Sperone in occasion of this exhibition warmly suggests.

 

10th February 2015

 

Mrs Barabino belongs to those exclusive few, the visionary avant-garde collectors who granted us young dealers the attention that was, in all senses, the oxygen we needed to survive. In the early Seventies there was a gang impassioned crazies (seven of them, to be precise) scattered around the peninsula, who helped us make our dreams come true: Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, Annibale Berlingieri, the engineer Angelo Baldassarre from Bari, the architect-artist Corrado Levi, and next-to-last but not least, Rosetta Barbarino; then there was also the maverick outsider, extravagant baron Giorgio Franchetti.

Mrs Rosetta barbarino, curious and quick, as if she already knew what she was looking for, came to the gallery and with motherly but at the same time dismissive manners asked us to explain our viewpoint, and then expressed her own: without beating around the bush. With restless energy, she openly discussed things with her very young son Maurizio, who had a major role in the whole affair, more than met the eye.

I don’t think she based her choices on personal acquaintance with the artists: her son was a formidable spy in those circles.

Be that as it may, she knew more than she let on: it’s the famous instinct that guides certain people, and not most of the others, that makes the difference. All the people who swim in the sea of art without drowning have the instinct.

When she announced a visit to Turin, I immediately became nervous, because I had repeatedly been subjected to her skill and tenacy in negotiating prices, i.e. discounts. Then came the catharsis, namely the instant when the two parties, collector and dealer, reached a truce. Had there been more people in Italy like these Magnificent Seven, maybe I never would have set off for New York to attempt an exciting but risky venture. Credit where credit is due.

 

Gian Enzo Sperone

March 27, 2015