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On a breezy Saturday last month, Vittorio Calabrese, the director of the Magazzino Italian Artwork museum in Chilly Spring, N.Y., stood onstage in the courtyard to introduce the very last function of the summer months, a live performance by the musician Sam Reider and his band the Human Fingers.
The sunshine was starting off to established, and a handful of stragglers of the marketed-out group located their seats. Most of the concertgoers have been dressed casually in denim jackets and oversize oxford shirts. But Mr. Calabrese, a indigenous of Irpinia, Italy, wore a blue match, loafers and, for a contact of sprezzatura, the Italian principle of nonchalant style, striped socks with various inches noticeable. Mr. Reider, he said, was going to engage in a music encouraged by Ennio Morricone in the custom of the American murder ballad.
It was not accurately “Volare,” but that has under no circumstances been the stage of the foundation. “The biggest obstacle is to avoid stereotypes of Italy,” Mr. Calabrese explained. “People imagine they will discover Renaissance or Baroque or ancient artwork, but we are not — and Italy is not — what the typical American would think it is. Most of this artwork was not known in this country.”
The foundation, which is about an hour’s drive north of Manhattan, is committed to Italian artwork of the postwar time period, starting with the Arte Povera motion that commenced in Turin in the 1960s and continuing with modern artists.
“We really don’t have paintings, and we don’t have figuration,” reported Mr. Calabrese, who life in Beacon, N.Y., and the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.
Rather, guests will locate “Altri Venti-Ostro,” by Bruna Esposito, a piece about air conditioning and metropolis dwelling in the form of an outdoor gazebo made of bamboo canes and hemp rope and boat propellers. Giulio Paolini’s “Il cielo e dintorni” consists of 18 white flags printed with depictions of the sky, as imagined by artists working from the Renaissance to nowadays, like Yves Klein, J.M.W. Turner and Raphael. There is a giant glass thumbnail by Giuseppe Penone.
Magazzino was conceived and started by Giorgio Spanu, an investor who grew up in Sardinia, and Nancy Olnick, who arrives from a genuine-estate developing loved ones in Manhattan.
“On our 3rd date he invited me to his residence for supper,” Ms. Olnick explained. “I bring this wine, and he goes, ‘Where’d you discover this wine?’” She wore virtually equivalent small spherical glasses as her partner, and as she spoke, he pulled out “La Muséologie Selon Georges Henri Rivière,” a e book by a French museologist. “And he proceeded to prepare this meal that was beautiful — the wine, the food and the discussion,” Ms. Olnick explained.
Collectively they collected more than enough Italian artwork to fill a personal museum. Magazzino opened in June 2017 with a clearly show of Margherita Stein’s contributions to Arte Povera. Throughout the pandemic, their at-dwelling programming bundled a streamed discussion “BLAQ•IT: Representing Blackness in Italy” with the scholar Fred Kuwornu.
Prior to the concert there was aperitivo hour, as one does in Italy. “We are locating approaches to have interaction with artists further than visual arts,” stated Mr. Spanu, as he surveyed the distribute of tomato jam and flatbread and goat cheese tarts and tall eyeglasses of several spritzes.
The initial clue that Magazzino, which means warehouse in Italian, is not a location where by visitors will locate Da Vincis could be the setting up by itself: a 20,000-sq.-foot concrete Brutalist house built by the Spanish architect Miguel Quismondo with eight galleries, a courtyard for live shows and film screenings, and a analysis middle.
It is also residence to 16 miniature Sardinian donkeys that serve as a variety of mascot, most with Italian names that get started with “D” for donkey: Dino, Donatella. Mr. Calabrese pointed out that the donkeys are the ideal way to get young children on a museum stop by to behave. The donkeys enjoy an exalted existence, nuzzling with just about every other, acquiring cooed at by website visitors and ingesting hay from a sculpture by Namsal Siedlecki called “Trevis Maponos,” forged from cash tossed into the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
Nonetheless, Mr. Calabrese wanted Magazzino to be noticed as additional than just putting architecture and helpful donkeys. “Our massive obstacle,” he stated, “is switching the graphic of Italy.”
As the band performed contemporary folk tunes, accompanied by saxophones and accordions, the environment sun bounced sharp angles on the concrete walls. Ms. Olnick, Mr. Spanu and Mr. Calabrese sat in the entrance row, rapt.
Even though the foundation has been open for 4 many years (minus a pandemic lockdown), it seems as if its name as a chic working day vacation from the metropolis (it gives a cost-free shuttle from the Cold Spring practice station) was just starting to coalesce.
Shortly they will crack ground on a new pavilion with place for one more gallery and a cafe. Magazzino is surrounded by orchards with lemons and apples and a combine of Mediterranean and local flora.
“People request to get married listed here after each and every week,” Mr. Calabrese reported.
