Also at the Turin’s art week the conservative looks young, but the smart collector is going back
Jacopo di Paolo (Bologna, doc. 1371 – 1426) Santa Margaret from Antiochia imprisoned while govemor Olibrio adulates an idol, Board, cm 38×22
Moretti Fine Arts.
When the contemporary art fair Artissima takes over Turin for a week a year ‘all art is contemporary’, but the good news is that some of the featured art is actually not. For the second edition this year, the parallel fair called Flashback (November 6-9) gave the city an alternative spot to those who are interested in antique and modern art, enriching the cultural offer and contributing to the rising narrative started by Frieze Masters that is bringing the past back to the present.
The location has moved from the slightly conventional setting of Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti to Pala Alpitour, a huge building that bares the traces of brutalist architect Arata Isozaki and the new airy space gives a different take on artworks that are more often than not over 500 years old.
The 32 galleries represent “a restricted selection to guarantee that quality remains high” say the directors of the fair, Ginevra Pucci and Stefania Poddighe, “and all the exhibitors and international players like Moretti Fine Arts and Voena+Robilant brought top pieces to Turin”. Voena shows Paolo Scheggi that sold well last month at Frieze and David LaChapelle (sold last year at Flashback), while Moretti hangs a precious tondo by Piero di Cosimo from 15thCentury. Mazzoleni showed a sequence of white pieces of Italians like Agostino Bonalumi and Enrico Castellani (four of the artworks that marked records during Sotheby’s auction last October in London were white). The horse by Baccio sold at Carlo Orsi the first night confirms that ‘animalier’ is currently one of the best subjects to sell paintings.
“Many visitors come to visit us from Artissima” continue Stefania Poddighe “taking advantage of the two art fairs proximity”. But a part from recording that some collectors of contemporary art could also be interested in a fair devoted to antique and modern art, the key point might be just aside: do we have a new generation of collectors that is approaching historic art? There is no univocal answer among the dealers, however it is possible to argue that a new trend is just around the corner. A few signs of evidence are easy to track: the relatively young age of the organizers, the enthusiasm of the new generations among the exhibitors at Flashback and the fact that Victoria Siddall, who has been appointed new director of the all Frieze Fairs, is coming from an Old Masters experience. Will historic art be back into fashion like it was in the 80s or 90s? “I feel the urge to state that ancient art is not dusty” says the not even 30 Massimiliano Caretto from Luigi Caretto gallery – with an expertise in Flemish and Dutch paintings from the Golden Age – “and I think in the years to come there will be a synthesis between contemporary and historic art”.
November 9, 2014
