{"id":12144,"date":"2014-10-01T07:17:38","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/fattoria-celle-a-dialogue-with-giuliano-gori-2\/"},"modified":"2015-07-14T12:35:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T10:35:02","slug":"fattoria-celle-a-dialogue-with-giuliano-gori","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/fattoria-celle-a-dialogue-with-giuliano-gori\/","title":{"rendered":"Fattoria Celle: a dialogue with Giuliano Gori"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fattoria di Celle, one of the most interesting centres of contemporary environmental art in the world, opened to the public for the first time on 12 June 1982. The park and the buildings house a large collection of works, 48 of which are installed in the outdoor areas and 25 inside the buildings, i.e. the estate, the villa and the farmhouse. All these works have been chosen by Giuliano Gori, art collector, who has invited the artists and followed them in their work to create masterpieces in perfect harmony with nature: \u201cthe works must be designed for the place and created on site\u201d.<\/p>\n

Laura Andreini:<\/strong> The Gori collection represents a unique reality in Italy. How has the transition from painting to landscape architecture taken place, and how did you become interested in the relationship between art and nature?
\nGiuliano Gori:<\/strong> The collection, which was begun after the end of World War II, consists of two specific moments, the first part which we define \u201chistorical\u201d and the second which centres on Environmental Art, and it is the latter that we are referring to. It was created without any models, but has become a model for many analogous structures which have been created later, both in Italy and abroad.
\nWith regard to your question as to how and when I have begun, I usually answer that it would rather be a question of asking why I have continued! I have always loved sculpture, because I consider that the role of the sculptor is more demanding than that of the painter. When he begins a work, the sculptor has higher costs and the work takes more time than a painting does; moreover, sculpture has the advantage of being something tactile, participative, because it allows for a sensorial contact with the spectator.
\nI don\u2019t agree with those who prevent people from touching sculptures, I consider it a serious mistake; Picasso often invited people to participate in his sculptures with tactile contact.\u00a0I am very fond of primitive art, and above all primitive sculpture, in addition to contemporary. The important thing is to manage to understand and read art. We sometimes approach a work without any key to interpreting it, taking for granted that we are unable to grasp its true meaning; this is often the case with non-figurative works.
\nOne day I was looking at a landscape by Klee in my home together with some friends, and one of them asked me: \u201cBut can you tell me what you see in it? How do you manage to be touched? There is nothing in this painting! The more I look at it, the less I understand of it!\u201d \u2013 then I have tried to make him reflect, inspiring him with questions. He finally said that he had understood that it was a matter of a winter landscape, a nocturnal one, and even that it was lit by the moon.
\nIt becomes obvious to ask oneself questions when looking at a work of art, in an attempt relate to it, to understand its true message.
\nMany admit that they cannot understand contemporary art, but say they understand antique art well. However, it is probably that someone who cannot decipher contemporary art, does not understand antique art either.
\nL.A.:<\/strong> The work of art, understood as environmental art in which the space is not just a simple container but an essential part of the work, is something different which supposes an interpretation of the space or environment by the artist. To when do the first works realized on the basis
\nof this concept date?
\nG.G.:<\/strong> The idea of environment art saw the light of day in 1961 in Barcelona, while I was visiting the Museum of Catalan Art of the 12th century, and where I saw reconstructions of environments as artists had imagined them. It was a brainwave!
\nAt that time my family owned a farm with a historical house that has been the property of Guido Cavalcanti. Even if the property vaunted an excellent agricultural production, it did not meet the prerequisites for realizing a collection of environmental art, and I have therefore had to sacrifice it.\u00a0Celle opened to the public thirty years ago, when it became clear that this collection was of such a kind that it should not be reserved for private use, and we felt obliged to share it and to discuss it with a vaster audience.
\nL.A.:<\/strong> How have the artists been selected and chosen? And how do you choose where the works are to be realized?
\nG.G.:<\/strong> We choose the artists ourselves, freely, on the basis of their creativity. The artist himself or herself chooses the place that is best suited to his or her project but, when it is a matter of an intervention in the park, he or she must show full respect for the existing nature, and thus refrain from altering it. One of the most important critics in Italy once suggested a cooperation; the idea was that he could choose four or five artists for us, but on the basis of the principle that a collector cannot have others choose his artists for him, nothing came out of this idea.
\nI have always wanted to choose the artists in a wholly independent way; I cannot accept others\u2019 interferences or decisions.
\nWith the artists there are many discussions and confrontations, also far in advance, especially with regard to the choice of the materials, as it is important to seek to avoid dangerous deteriorations which would shorten the lifetime of the work. I have never invited an artist to realize a work but only, at first, to visit the collection and at the same time try to understand whether our ideas converge.
\nL.A.:<\/strong> How do you begin collaborating with a sculptor?
\nG.G.:<\/strong> Some friends, critics and collectors, when they heard about the environmental art project in Celle, had expressed doubt that an artist could come to Celle and obtain inspiration from the space in order to then ideate a work; according to them, the artist was more likely to arrive with a project in his pocket, and once the space had been chosen, he would have realized it. On the contrary, I can prove that this is not the case, because the great majority of the artists present in Celle have changed their way to be, then diffusing their new language outside the park.
\nOne example is Magdalena Abakanowicz, whom I had met at the Venice Biennial of 1980; I truly wanted a work of hers here in Celle because I had been wholly fascinated by her world, and after a long wait I finally managed it. She came here in 1985, the year when the frost had ruined all the olive trees. I offered her the whole park to realize her work, except a small area which was intended for something else. After having stayed here a week, she threatened to leave, because she could not use that space, which was the only one she was interested in, and which she eventually obtained. As to the choice of the materials, she stressed that if I had ever thought of bronze she would never accept, as she considered that material as outdated. I mention by the way that she had never been asked to work with any specific material, neither bronze. I had only asked her for a project. She thus dedicated herself to testing all known materials, stone, fibreglass, marbles and so on. Then one day she suddenly asked me to put her in touch with a foundry to conduct new experiments.\u00a0I suggested Venturi, a company in Bologna that I knew well. After some days she made a prototype in aluminium, and then another one in bronze, beginning a new experience she had previously been against.\u00a0It was the first time she worked in bronze, but since then she has continued to produce wagonloads with sculptures sent to all over the world, continuing to work with the Venturi foundry, contributing with new techniques that the company had never managed to fully master in three generations. This is only an anecdote, but every work found in the park has its own history, which is hard to perceive and imagine.
\nL.A.<\/strong>: The Celle project has involved many professional figures as gardeners, blacksmiths, carpenters, glassmakers who have not only realized works under the supervision of the artists, but also maintained and cared for the park and the nature.
\nG.G.<\/strong>: One work that has been created in close cooperation with the Mati plant nursery of Pistoia, for instance, is that by Sonfist. \u201cThe Circles of Time\u201d, realized almost entirely with plants. The artist had conducted a research on the earliest plants in Tuscany, starting from the period of the geological evolution, realizing a work of great visual and scientific impact, enclosed by a large circle of laurels, a species used by the Greeks and imported by the Romans who, as we know, used myrtle.
\nL.A.<\/strong>: So we can say that Celle represents a kind of workshop where artists and craftsmen work together?
\nG.G.<\/strong>: I also like to describe it like that; a kind of interdisciplinary workshop.
\nL.A.<\/strong>: We are above all interested in the difficult relationship between nature and architecture, which seldom succeeds in expressing itself in the best way, at least not from an architectural standpoint.
\nG.G.<\/strong>: The environmental art collected in Celle is certainly the artistic expression which is closest to architecture, to the point that we were initially uncertain as to how to name the initiative: Archi-sculpture, instead of Environmental Art. Italian and foreign architects visit Celle all the time, and in the year 1996 The park of Celle received the prestigious international prize of AIAPP (Associazione italiana di architettura del paesaggio) as the most important private park in Italy. The work titled \u201cTheatre Space Celle\u201d, by Beverly Pepper, has been declared a \u2018Homage to Pietro Porcinai\u2018.
\nL.A.<\/strong>: And Alessandro Mendini created a work in 2012, \u201cMechanical tree\u201c.
\nG.G.<\/strong>: That story sounds like a fairy tale, and it began in a very curious way. I contacted Mendini on the suggestion of my children, who wanted us to meet. This took place in the autumn of 2011 and it immediately proved to be a very positive experience, the creative energy emanating from the large firm of the architect brothers, Alessandro and Francesco Mendini, has invested me, making me want to return as soon as possible.\u00a0In fact, not much later I returned once again in that magical place, and I was struck by a drawn album, in which Alessandro had illustrated, point by point, the subjects we had exchanged ideas on, concerning art and design, during my previous visit. On that occasion Mendini told me that he knew of a garden in Celle, in which all my friends in the art world had chosen a plant, thus creating a kind of vegetal sacrarium. He asked me if also he could find a place by choosing a plant, but unfortunately the garden is reserved to those of my friends who had turned seventy in the year 2000. And as he was born in 1931, it was impossible to make such an exception. One day when I returned to his studio, he showed me a project for a tree in steel, telling me that I would not have any problems with installing it in the midst of all the others, with the following writing below: \u201cI apologize, Giulio, for not being born in 1930!\u201d
\nL.A.<\/strong>: How many sculptures are currently installed in the park?
\nG.G.<\/strong>: They are forty-eight environmental works in the park, and thirty in the historical buildings. The time required to realize an environmental work varies from a minimum of three to four months, up to a maximum of two years. The one by Abakanowicz has taken 9 months, no more and no less, just like the birth of a child!<\/p>\n