ILEANA SONNABEND & ARTE POVERA
Muzeul Național de Artă al României
June 26 – September 22, 2024
Promoted by Muzeul Național de Artă al României, Embassy of Italy in Romania and Italian Institute of Culture in Bucharest
Organized in collaboration with Antonio Homem of the Sonnabend Collection Foundation
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The exhibition pays tribute to the life and work of Romanian-born gallery owner Ileana Sonnabend (whose surname at birth was Schapira), who was born on 25 October 1914 in Bucharest and died in New York on 21 October 2007.
Having later separated from her first husband and gallery owner Leo Castelli, in 1961 Ileana Sonnabend married Michael Sonnabend and opened the Sonnabend Gallery with him in Paris in 1962 and then in New York in 1970. In addition to supporting American artists, Ileana Sonnabend had strong and continuous relations with Italy, paying specific attention to Arte Povera.
In order to emphasize Ileana Sonnabend’s far-sightedness and openness towards Italian art, the exhibition at the MNAR focuses on her relationship with the Arte Povera artists who exhibited in her gallery: those were Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio.
The exhibition is the first exhibition that Romania dedicates to the Romanian gallerist and the first international exhibition that pays tribute to her not based on works from her collection, currently belonging to the Sonnabend Collection Foundation. Indeed, in order both to differentiate itself from such previous exhibition projects dedicated to her and to emphasize the still strong link between Ileana Sonnabend’s history and Italy, the exhibition at MNAR includes works, exhibited in her gallery or showed elsewhere, all from Italian owners – i.e., by Italian Arte Povera artists or their heirs, or by museums, foundations, private collectors, and Italian gallerists.
As a preface to the focus on Arte Povera, the exhibition includes a tribute to Mario Schifano, as he was the first Italian artist Ileana Sonnabend exhibited.
Preceding the viewing of the works are two chronological, textual and photographic in-depth parts: the first on Ileana Sonnabend’s life and work, and the second on the exhibitions by Arte Povera artists organized by her.
At the end of the exhibition, a video documentary on the gallery owner and Italian art is screened, made for the occasion by 3D Produzioni and then broadcasted on Italian television.