This exhibition, project space and series of events explore the archives and practices of Giuseppe and Giovanna Panza, the internationally renowned collectors who, over more than five decades, built an extraordinary contemporary art collection including works by minimal and conceptual artists from both America and Europe.
The presentation features archival material presented for the first time and a series of plywood paintings by Ford Beckman. Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall Drawing No.54’ (1970) will be realised during the exhibition as a performative action in the gallery space. A screening and series of public talks over the course of the exhibition expands on the topic of collecting as a concept.
From the 1950s, Giuseppe Panza played a fundamental role in introducing American art movements to the museums of Europe. Dr. Panza was known for the pioneering and rigorous approach taken to all aspects of the collecting process. These fascinating archives bring to life the methods of selecting the artworks, their meticulous documentation in the space, the correspondence with the artists, the precision of his curatorial approach and the modes of display in both the domestic environment and institutional spaces.
The archival materials have been organised in rows reminiscent of the reading room of a library to reflect that for Giuseppe Panza, art was a philosophical pursuit for truth and exhibiting art was a vehicle for communicating knowledge. The study room is simultaneously an exhibiting model and a curatorial approach. The archive material on view has been divided into four categories: books and research materials; documentation of the artworks and correspondence with the artists; Giuseppe Panza’s personal drawings and photographs and, lastly, his unrealised projects.
Panza’s documentation of the artworks and his correspondence with artists, features archive material such as letters from Hanne Darboven, the chromatic prototypes of Phillip Sims, the drawings and notebooks of Lawrence Carroll, the correspondence with Ford Beckman, the invitations and photographic reports of David Simpson and the photographic reports of Richard Nonas’s sculptures.
Included in the presentation are Giuseppe Panza’s personal drawings and his own photographs of skies which were a source of inspiration leading him to collect a series of monochromes. This section also includes curatorial studies for the installation of the Panza Collection in Sassuolo, Italy, and in Albright Knox in Buffalo, USA. Another section documents Giuseppe Panza’s role as a pioneer of Land and Environmental art and the unrealised projects he was working on within this genre. He supported the crater projects by James Turrell, two environments by Douglas Wheeler, and the sculptural interventions of Jene Highstein.
The exhibition provides an understanding of the radical approach of Giuseppe Panza as a collector, but more importantly, it constitutes a paradigm for collecting as a creative endeavour in which collector and artists participate equally in a common philosophical quest.
| Duration | 04 September 2018 - 15 September 2018 |
| Times | Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 6 pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Hauser & Wirth (London) |
| Address | 23 Savile Row, London, W1S 2ET |
| Contact | / london@hauserwirth.com / www.hauserwirth.com |