Why I Collect: Maurizio Morra Greco

‘I have two kinds of collection – one where I collect the artists I like through galleries, and another that is much more focused on my city, Naples, which is put together by the Fondazione Morra Greco. The person behind both [enterprises] is me. I collect without the help of an advisor and manage the foundation directly. My life is split between two worlds that are really complicated – this and my full-time work as a dentist.

‘My first introduction to art was through my mother. Her favorite artist was Toulouse-Lautrec and I grew up with reproductions of his paintings all around the home. She would also collect antique objects in a minor way – not from official dealers, but from the kind of shops to which people would sell things during house clearances. I started collecting antiques and 19th-century paintings when I was 14 years old. The problem for me was, when an artist passed away, the potential for dialogue obviously became limited.

‘So I started to become interested in what was done in the moment – my moment. My approach was completely revolutionized. I began to follow contemporary art, and my collection changed. I also started to think about how I could enable artists to make art and put on exhibitions by launching a foundation.

‘This was in 1997. Up until then, the late Lucio Amelio had been the most famous and heroic figure in the Naples artworld. There was also a program of talks where artists such as the postmodernist Mario Schifano would be interviewed. This affected me a lot. I got in touch with younger Neapolitan artists and, thanks to Art Basel, was able to expand my interests to the international scene. It’s through the fair that I came across artists including Henrik Olesen, Manfred Pernice, Kai Althoff, and Kirsten Pieroth.

‘The first works I collected were by artists who were the same age as me: Germans like Althoff and Gregor Schneider, and English ones like Jonathan Monk and Douglas Gordon. They were young, just starting out. There was a particular energy around those scenes and I began friendships that continue to this day. What was important then was the group of artists, rather than individual names. Naturally, I also followed the Italian scene, its young galleries that were doing something substantial – Sonia Rosso, Franco Noero, Alfonso Artiaco, and Giò Marconi, to name a few.

‘The decision to go ahead and start my foundation came a year after I began to collect contemporary art. I wanted to share art with other people, and the only way to do that was to open a space where we could show the people of Naples the collection. The foundation is in the city center, in an area that, at the time we started, was beset by social problems. It was an opportunity to share something beautiful with those who were not used to seeing art. 

‘The idea I pursued was based on some pillars. One is the social activity of contemporary art. The only way to go forward, as mentioned, was to establish the foundation in a deprived part of Naples, where we could stimulate the environment, rather than somewhere bourgeois. From that, seeds have started to grow – there’s been an increase in building restoration and new shops opening in the surrounding area. The other development is that, since 2006, we’ve been producing everything that is shown at the foundation ourselves. Normally, we don’t include works that have been made in other places. We finance the staging of the show, have a group of people who help the artists with assembling their works, and we show that art by ourselves. And while the artists are invited to Naples, they are not forced to create work about the city. But it’s a place where artists do really want to come – it’s a place that’s full of history, archaeology, real life, and yes, good cooking. In 2014, the artist Laure Prouvost rearranged the city’s patterns with Polpomotorino, a wonderful totemic sculptural and video work that drew on her observations of its social life, rituals, noise, and ambience. Another artist who comes to mind is Judith Hopf, who was inspired by the exhibition space's decadent architectural and structural style to create a playful, subversive site-specific project in 2013.

‘We’ve just reopened the foundation after a renovation with a trio of exhibitions – by Jimmie Durham, Peter Bartoš, and Henrik Håkansson – artists who are all interested in the natural world. I’ve been friends with Jimmie for a long time – he’s spent decades living in Naples. One of the foundation’s aims in terms of research is to propose artists from abroad who are not that well-known, such as 81-year-old Bartoš, who comes from Slovakia. Another aim is to propose artists who are no longer the center of attention, but who remain great and cannot be forgotten. I started collecting Håkansson 20 years ago – he’s a fantastic artist who has continued to produce excellent work.

‘I’m not someone who rotates work at my office or home. I just have some up that I like, including works by Olesen, Sol Lewitt, Lukas Duwenhögger, Steven Pippin, Katja Strunz, and Július Koller, among others. My intellectual activity over the past 20 years is reflected in the collection and the foundation – it’s an egocentric portrait of the collector!’

Skye Sherwin is an art writer based in Rochester, UK. She contributes regularly to The Guardian and numerous art publications.

Top image: Collector Maurizio Morra Greco in the projection room of his foundation, the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples, Italy. Photo by Ilyes Griyeb for Art Basel.