Conversations
Panza—The Ultimate Collectors
A Conversation Between Giuseppina Panza and Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese. Villa, First floor, Living room. Artworks by Ruth Ann Fredenthal and primitive African and Mexican art Photo: Alessandro Zambianchi, Milano
- 13 January 2019
‘A collection is a very particular kind of accumulation. There is nothing of the inert object in it for he or she who buys it. And the issue is less to accumulate than to surround oneself with works that have a life and a life-giving quality of their own… They constitute a living presence that transform us.’—Giuseppe Panza
Last year, Hauser & Wirth initiated a major collaboration with the collection of Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza, the internationally renowned collectors who, over more than five decades, built an extraordinary contemporary art collection that reveals their visionary approach to collecting, and lifelong commitment to their artists. The collection spans three generations and encompasses Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Conceptual art, and Environmental and Land artists. The Panza Collection collaboration will continue to unfold over a number of years, and will include public presentations and events exploring the collection in-depth. The collaboration includes the consignment of a significant number of works of art to Hauser & Wirth. For this year’s Art Basel, the gallery presents an extraordinary Martin Puryear artwork that has been in the Panza Collection for several decades. Hauser & Wirth’s Italian Director, Stefano Rabolli Pansera, met with Giuseppina Panza to speak about how this extraordinary work ended up in her parents’ collection.
Dogon art, Bandiagara region, Mali, Ancestor image (fetish), Wood with dark patina, FAI Fondo Ambiente Italiano, Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese. Photo: Alessandro Zambianchi, Milano
Stefano Rabolli Pansera: We are thrilled that you have consigned to us this Martin Puryear work as part of our ongoing collaboration. It’s an incredible piece and I’m curious to learn how it ended up in the collection. How did Giuseppe Panza get to know Puryear’s work?
Giuseppina Panza: My father was very impressed by Martin Puryear’s artworks. I recall that the first encounter with his work happened in 1979. At the time, Martin Puryear was living in Chicago and my father asked the director of the Chicago Museum to visit his studio. The studio was on the city’s outskirts; fairly gloomy but very evocative because the sculptures revive the magical, benign power of the shamans. My father was deeply upset that he was not able to acquire any of the artworks at that time, and in fact he had to wait until the 90s.
SRP: Martin Puryear occupies an important position in what we refer to as the ‘third generation’ of the Panza Collection, meaning artists who were little known at the time they entered the collection, but who Giuseppe felt passionate about, and whom he collected in-depth from the nascence of their careers. What is the position of Puryear’s work in the collection?
GP: My father considered Puryear one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. In this sense, Puryear’s position is not limited to the third generation of the collection, but is central to the entire Panza Collection. The prime position Martin Puryear occupies in the collection is connected to the very origin of my father’s collecting habits, since he had collected African art his entire life, and these same forms resonated for him in Puryear. Giuseppe Panza was impressed with how Puryear’s art was capable of combining two different and seemingly opposing cultures—Western art and the African tradition—in order to create works of the highest quality. Martin Puryear brings to life the traditional value systems and aesthetics found in African art. My father used to associate Puryear’s works with the art of vital and living forms: he meant that the forms were not geometric and rational, but followed the ‘twisting’ of growing things. My father was fascinated by traditional African art before it was influenced by the West: the way wood was used made him think of the unknown forces existing in nature. Puryear keeps this sensibility alive, and demonstrates that what appears to be an unbridgeable difference can disappear in the hope of a new Renaissance.
Martin Puyear, Some Tales, Ash, hickory, yellow pine, 1975 – 1978 © Martin Puryear, Courtesy Donald Young Gallery, Panza Collection and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Alessandro Zambianchi
SRP: When did Giuseppe Panza acquire Some Tales (1975 – 1978)?
GP: After a few years of inactivity, my father started collecting again in 1988. This year marked the beginning of the ‘third generation.’ His first focus was Puryear. He saw a beautiful exhibition at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles in the 80s, but he was only able to start collecting in 1988. And his very first thought was to buy something from Martin Puryear. The right moment occurred in June 1988 at Donald Young Gallery, who was Martin Puryear’s main dealer at the time. There he acquired three major large-scale sculptures. Some Tales remains one of the most impressive sculptures in the entire Panza Collection. Soon word spread that my father was interested in Puryear, and the collection grew to contain several works by him!
SRP: Can you talk about why you consider Some Tales to be such a significant work?
GP: It’s a fascinating work, with a really incredible history—it was one of the very few works that survived a fire that destroyed Puryear’s studio in 1977. Therefore, this sculpture is one of the finest surviving examples from Puryear’s early practice, and has become a quasi-mythical work within the artist’s oeuvre—quite literally rising from the ashes of the artist’s studio. It was included in Puryear’s important mid-career retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991, and it was the earliest work shown in the more recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, which traveled to Fort Worth, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. For many people, Some Tales represents their introduction to, and the origins of, Puryear’s oeuvre. –
Puryear’s work is part of Hauser & Wirth’s presentation at Art Basel, from 13 – 16 June 2019.