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| Galleria Sperone | |
|---|---|
| Name | Galleria Sperone |
| Established | 1969 |
| Location | Turin, Italy; Milan; New York |
| Type | Contemporary art gallery |
Galleria Sperone is a contemporary art gallery founded in Turin that played a significant role in postwar and contemporary art networks across Europe and the United States. The gallery became known for championing Arte Povera, Minimalism, Conceptual art and postminimal practices while fostering transatlantic exchanges among artists, curators, critics and institutions. Its program intersected with major museums, biennials and academic centers, influencing collecting practices, curatorial theory and market trajectories.
The gallery opened amid the cultural ferment of the late 1960s alongside movements and events such as Arte Povera, the Venice Biennale, the Documenta exhibitions, and debates connected to the 1968 protests and the Paris 1968 events. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s its activities intersected with institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In the 1990s and 2000s Galleria Sperone participated in international art fairs including Art Basel, FIAC, Frieze Art Fair, and collaborations with university departments such as Columbia University and Yale University. Its timeline reflects connections to curators associated with the Kunsthalle Bern, Fondazione Prada, and the Serpentine Galleries.
Key figures associated with the gallery engaged with peers from institutions like the Royal College of Art, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, the Princeton University art history faculty, and curators who worked at the Guggenheim Museum, the Neue Nationalgalerie, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Directors and advisors collaborated with critics writing for outlets such as Artforum, Art in America, Artpress, Flash Art, and October (journal). Relationships extended to collectors and trustees from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, the Fondazione Merz, and patrons active in the networks of the British Council and the Italian Cultural Institute.
Exhibitions presented works by leading practitioners associated with movements including Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti, and Michelangelo Pistoletto, as well as international artists such as Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Richard Serra, and Sol LeWitt. The program included shows featuring Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, and Franco Angeli, alongside younger figures who later exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Neue Galerie New York. Collaborations and loans involved artists represented by galleries like White Cube, Gagosian Gallery, Gladstone Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, and Pace Gallery.
Originally based in Turin, the gallery expanded activities to Milan and staged projects in gallery spaces and institutions in cities such as New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Barcelona, and Zurich. It engaged with residency programs connected to ISCP, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and exchanges with curatorial offices at the National Gallery of Modern Art and regional museums like the Castello di Rivoli. The gallery’s presence at international fairs fostered ties to regional art centers from Naples to Geneva and to collectors in Monaco and Dubai.
Curatorial practice at the gallery reflected dialogues with theoretical frameworks promoted by figures linked to Yves-Alain Bois, Harald Szeemann, Germano Celant, and Rosalind Krauss, and engaged with critical discourse from journals such as Art Journal, October (journal), and Flash Art. Programming balanced historical surveys with mono-artist shows, public commissions and site-specific projects that dialogued with institutions including the Fondazione Merz, the MAXXI, the Pinacoteca di Brera, and academic exhibitions organized at Harvard University and New York University. The gallery influenced curators working for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery (London), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Works associated with its exhibitions entered collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Notable objects and commissions referenced practices by Giulio Paolini, Alighiero Boetti, Giuseppe Penone, Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Sol LeWitt, Lucio Fontana, and Piero Manzoni. The gallery’s handling of editions and multiples connected it to archives like the Archivio del Moderno, the Archivio Merz, and private collections formed by trustees of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and donors to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Critical response to the gallery came from writers associated with Roberto Longhi, Achille Bonito Oliva, Germano Celant, Hal Foster, and critics publishing in The New York Times, The Guardian, La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, and Il Sole 24 Ore. Scholarly discussion situated the gallery within debates at conferences hosted by ICOM, AICA, and university symposia at Columbia University and the Courtauld Institute of Art. Reviews and retrospectives referenced exchanges with curators from the Venice Biennale, the Documenta series, and collectors connected to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
Category:Contemporary art galleries