Davide Mazzoleni (left) and Luigi Mazzoleni (right).
Photo: Giorgio Perottino, Courtesy of Mazzoleni, London - Torino
1 How did you get your start?
Mazzoleni was founded in Turin in 1986, by my parents Giovanni and Anna Pia Mazzoleni, as a progression from their private collection started in the early 1960s. This meant that I was lucky enough to be surrounded by art from a young age and from there my passion and involvement with the gallery developed.
2 What is your area of focus?
When the gallery first opened, its collection and exhibition programme centred on the early 20th century. However, my brother Davide and I took a strong interest in the latter half of the century, exploring the art produced during the Italian Post-war period until Arte Povera. To this day, a strong interest in the work of Post-war masters, such as Bonalumi, Burri, Castellani, Manzoni and Fontana, remains at the core of what we do. In the last decade, we’ve also increased our scope to Contemporary artists like Marinella Senatore, Melissa McGill and other talented artists.
3 What projects have you worked on recently?
Our upcoming exhibition The Paradox of Proximity: Agostino Bonalumi and Lee Seung Jio at our London gallery has been my focus of late. This exhibition is a collaboration with Kukje Gallery and sees the work of Bonalumi, a Post-war Italian artist, and Lee Seung Jio, who played a pivotal role in defining Korean Modernism, in dialogue with each other. This exhibition aims to transcend the boundaries of art history beyond the Western hemisphere and exemplify how these two artists, despite their different cultural backgrounds, both moved beyond the informal, rejecting the flat nature of the canvas and two-dimensionality.
4 Do you have an art collection in your home?
I’ve recently started to collect drawings by international Contemporary artists and Old Masters and am currently building a house in Tuscany where soon I’ll be able to display my whole collection.
5 Real ale or espresso martini?
Neither - you’ll either find me drinking green tea or biodynamic wines, and, every once in a while, Mezcal.
