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#25 Innovage
2008

Look and listen

by Giorgio Marconi

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Your professional activity appears to be an excellent example of an ongoing exchange and equilibrium between the great experience you’ve acquired over time and a capacity to adapt to modern-day requirements. How have you managed to achieve such a fine balance, that may be summed up in the term Innovage?
It’s important to understand the elements that go to make up my vintage years. In the first place, there’s no denying I’ve reached a ripe old age, but I reckon I’m lucky to still be so active and lucid.
What’s more, my vintage years were enriched by the arrival of a son. Then when he turned twenty he departed for the United States to work in an art gallery. After his return he asked to work with me in the gallery. I said yes, closed Studio Marconi and opened the Giò Marconi Gallery; like an old samurai I decided it was time to give myself over more fully to my son’s future and work at something together.
The experience of thirty years was carried over into the new enterprise born from the ashes of Studio Marconi. What’s more, with the new Gallery we felt freer to pursue our interest in the contemporary art scene to better comprehend the changes afoot.
My number one adviser on the latest developments is now my son. He follows all the innovations, while I’m sort of the Gallery’s historian, the guardian of the memories and experiences accrued in the Studio Marconi years. The Marconi Foundation has also helped to preserve and foster that memory and spirit.
You see, Studio Marconi wasn’t simply another gallery; it was a haven and workshop of the arts, where people would congregate to study, and openly discuss and work out new ideas.

What was the transition from what you had been so successfully and satisfactorily doing for so many years to setting up a new gallery with your son like?
At the time my son was twenty-one. I must confess I wasn’t that keen at first; I sort of felt like my creation, my personal toy was being torn from me. I can only thank him now for the decision he induced me to take. Not that I always share his work-style. But I must admit he gets results where I’d perhaps only be at a loss. He understands today’s youth and he’s quick to pick up on the latest innovations; he knows his way around and how to pick and choose in the boundless contemporary art scene. I’d have these artists come to me that I just could not fathom out. What they had to show simply left me standing on the tarmac. Not so my son. That’s also what helped me to make up my mind to close the Studio and go at it with Giò. The idea was that we’d be partners in the new set up; that way there was room for artists of the “old guard” (my protégées) and for new, up-coming artists (his protégées). It’s worked out perfectly. I still of course do my share of the work, but I deal with what I’m familiar with, what I’ve come to know well in many years’ experience. The latest trends I leave to others to decipher.

Holding on to one’s past when tackling something new or moving into the future is important then, is it?
There are over a hundred and thirty contemporary art galleries in Milan today. Sadly, many are there simply to cater to whatever’s in fashion. Given such a dismal scenario I felt obliged to hoist my banners, the symbols of the hard work accomplished in the past with such great artists as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, Mimmo Rotella, Man Ray, John Bock, Jorge Pardo, Jonathan Monk. That’s not to say that I’ve taken refuge in the past. I’m quite convinced the new must advance, but I help spawn it by organising important exhibitions of artists with whom I’ve worked in the past. It’s important for the new generations, for their future, that they never lose sight of what’s been before, especially in those years. I work a lot now with, on and through my great store of emotions and memories built up over the years. Preserving the past means bringing the present to a more meaningful and fuller fruition, and that’s what I’ve set out to do.

How important is this dialogue between past and present for anyone interested in doing business with your gallery?
I believe history is important. I’ve always striven to maintain a historical perspective and steer clear of hype. I’m not interested in fragments of reality. What interests me is art’s capacity to inquire beyond mere representation.
I’m interested in the whys and wherefores of art and its practitioners. That’s essentially what I stake my money on: knowing the artist to understand her/his works. My approach is to tackle any work of art from a human angle first, trying to understand the artist’s idiosyncratic motivations and egoisms. Then, if there’s any sacred fire in the work, I’ll move on to that. Anyway, I’ve reached a stage in my profession and career that I can now pick and choose who I’ll sell any work to. The buyer has to elicit my interest and prompt new reflections through her/ his curiosity.

What would you say are the key words that sum up the story of Studio Marconi, the Gallery and the Giò Marconi Foundation?
Look, listen and learn.

“I’m not interested in fragments of reality. What interests me is art’s capacity to inquire beyond mere representation. I’m interested in the whys and wherefores of art and its practitioners. That’s essentially what I stake my money on: knowing the artist to understand her/his works”

Interview by Marco Minuz

Giorgio Marconi

In 1965 Giorgio Marconi opens the Studio Marconi and immediately sets about organising exhibitions of some of the most internationally acclaimed artists of the day, including Alexander Calder, Joseph Beuys, Lucio Fontana, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray and Atelier Van Lieshout. In 1992 after closing Studio Marconi he opens the Giò Marconi Gallery with his son. Several years ago the Gallery’s activity gained the support of the Giorgio Marconi Foundation.

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Images

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  • Mark Simmonds

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  • Oliver Bothwell

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