Using contemporary art as a catalyst between the past and present to produce ideas for the future

As told to Cathryn Drake

Why I Collect: Massimo and Francesca Valsecchi

Massimo and Francesca Valsecchi talk about their collection as being a catalyst for education, and the Palazzo Butera, their new home in Palermo, as a museum and civic laboratory, as well as the embodiment of an innovative approach to historical and cultural research.Massimo: I started collecting when I was 15. I was buying work from the painter Lino Schenal, who was living in Paris and spending his summers in Portofino. All of the elite, such as the Mondadori publishing family and the Agnellis, were buying from this artist because he was the only major figure on the local scene in Portofino at that point. By the time I was 19, my room was full of Schenal’s work, and we became friends. He was very well known among members of high society in the 1960s, but later he more or less disappeared. Meeting Schenal changed my life because I started to understand how artists think. And then I met Francesca in London in the 1960s. She was the real collector, and we started to collect contemporary art together.Francesca: I am not sure what inspired me to collect, frankly. In London it was very easy – I would see a lot of beautiful things, paintings and other objects, and thought maybe I would like to have them, ever since I can remember. But when you really start to collect, what takes you there, I don’t know exactly.

Massimo: I don’t really see myself as a collector. In 1971 I opened Galleria La Bertesca in Milan, and that was my start as a professional in the field of art. It was named after the important Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa, where Germano Celant mounted the first exhibition of Arte Povera in 1967. The gallery had opened the year before with the show ‘American Pop Artists’, which included works by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6756/Jim-Dine" target="_blank">Jim Dine</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6740/Roy-Lichtenstein" target="_blank">Roy Lichtenstein</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6748/James-Rosenquist" target="_blank">James Rosenquist</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6751/Andy-Warhol" target="_blank">Andy Warhol</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7227/Tom-Wesselmann" target="_blank">Tom Wesselmann</a>. I opened a space with my name [in Milan] in 1974, and although it still exists, it has been inactive for 25 years – the last show I did there is on permanent display. I always had strong relationships and exchanges with artists, and it was never about what I liked or disliked, fashion or aesthetics, but more about art as research. It’s about continuously pushing the boundaries of what is new and contemporary or different.

I like collections that come alive. So I believe contemporary art should be used as part of a more efficient, alternative system to educate university students and other young people about the interrelationships between the old and new. To that end, in 2004 I collaborated with Antonello Negri at the University of Milan to organize the exhibition ‘Il Tesoro della Statale: Collezioni e Identità di un grande Ateneo’ [Treasure of the Statale: Collections and Identity of a Great University], for which historic objects from the collection such as Egyptian papyrus were displayed alongside work by five contemporary artists. It was the starting point of a bigger project for a center that was approved by the university and the city 25 years ago, with buildings designed by Mario Botta and Renzo Piano. It was signed but not financed. I am still waiting.Since then, I have been doing projects with universities and cities to use contemporary art as a catalyst between the past and present to produce ideas for the future. Usually these institutions have an incredible amount of material, going back centuries, and the concept is to create centers for interdisciplinary study combining science and humanism. There are numerous ways that you can combine various things, not just chronologically, to elicit the connections between everything and, in turn, a more complex perception of the world. This is the type of project I’ve done with The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, and the Ashmolean Museum of art and archaeology, in Oxford.

Francesca: We started with contemporary art, but then we opened up to all sorts of things. We went to museums for years to see things and learn about what is most interesting and what we would like to buy. After we moved to London, it was fantastic because you can find everything there. And that is how the collection came about.Massimo: From the 1960s, we lived in New York, London, and Milan, spending three months in each city and visiting other places just to get a broader vision of what was happening. Finally, we decided to leave our place in London after 50 years, and my wife wanted a palazzo in the south [of Italy]. The University of Palermo invited me to do a project like the one planned for Milan, but little has been achieved in the past seven years. In the meantime, we’ve finished the Palazzo Butera, which played a significant role in the history of Sicily as the primary residence of the Branciforte family. It’s not just the renovation of an important building but also a laboratory for contextualizing the past through a dialogue with the contemporary. Contemporary art is the driving force, but there are also Hellenistic and Roman antiquities, old master paintings, African sculptures, decorative Arts and Crafts objects, furniture, porcelain, and glass. It’s difficult to explain our vision – there are probably 15 collections from every period, especially peak moments when there was transformation or change.

Francesca: Palermo needs things like we are doing more than Milan does.Massimo: Yes, Milan is an important international city with many cultural institutions. In Sicily, all of the ideas come from the past, as portrayed by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his novel The Leopard.It has not been an easy project. Just to restore 120,000 square feet meant supervising hundreds of people every day. So now all of the contemporary works are commissioned specifically for the palazzo, and I am engaging artists I have worked with for many years – including David Tremlett, Elisabeth Scherffig, Eugenio Ferretti, and Anne and Patrick Poirier – because it is very complicated to create work for historic spaces with elements from periods such as the Baroque and Rococo. We also display works from our collection by contemporary artists such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6768/Gilbert-George" target="_blank">Gilbert &amp; George</a>, Tom Phillips,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10875/Richard-Hamilton" target="_blank">Richard Hamilton</a>, <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10504/Hamish-Fulton" target="_blank">Hamish Fulton</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7519/Terry-Winters" target="_blank">Terry Winters</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7364/Tetsumi-Kudo" target="_blank">Tetsumi Kudo</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8111/Gerhard-Richter" target="_blank">Gerhard Richter</a>. Directors of major museums visit just to see how you can put all of these things together. So you can’t reduce our project to a collection – it is much more complicated and alive.

Cathryn Drake is a freelance writer and editor who has contributed to Artforum, frieze, Men’s Vogue, BBC Travel, and Time, among other publications.

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Captions for full-bleed images: 1. Desktop view: Facade of and view from Palazzo Butera. &copy; Giovanni Cappelletti. Mobile view: Palazzo Butera. &copy; Sandro Scalia. 2. Palazzo Butera. &copy; Sandro Scalia. 3. Francesca Frua De Angeli and Massimo Valsecchi during the restoration of Palazzo Butera. Photo by Dario De Benedictis.

Using contemporary art as a catalyst between the past and present to produce ideas for the future

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