The Ci'sponto Art Fair is part spectacle and part high-minded cultural subversion. Serious collectors make it a point to avoid this biennial event. Very serious collectors never miss it.
My good friend Currado Malaspina was stirred from his convalescence in order to curate the booth of his Swiss art dealer, Johann Gier. His approach was rather unique.
Just outside Ci'sponto is the small fishing village of San Viscere di Testa, an idyllic untamed paradise in the Cinque Terre. Aside from the occasional mudslide that typically tears several of the small travertine casolari off their foundations, life in San Viscere is as close to perfect as one can imagine. Malaspina descended upon this shangra-la with an unusual proposition.
He offered the local fishermen 500 euro to draw or paint a portrait of their wives - naked! (Silvio Berlusconi owns a villa in the neighboring Anobuco al Mare so the denizens of San Viscere are not easily scandalized). He received over four-hundred pictures and some were rather well done.
 |
| Ritratto di mia moglie, Luana-Maria Pistoi, 2012 Benno Pistoi |
He installed these eccentric works salon style in Gier's 200 square meter space.
The wives were not amused.
No comments:
Post a Comment