Turin celebrates 30 years of Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

"I remember Pascale Marthine Tayou, who did not yet have a gallery then. He stayed with me for a fortnight and made portfolios for my children that I still keep. He is now a very famous artist, but that was one of the first times we saw his work'. Today he works with the Galleria Continua and his works range in value from 10,000 to 480,000 euros.

La personale di Sanya Kantarovsky “Letdown” alla Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo di Torino nel 2017. (ph Edoardo Piva)

After the experience of Campo 95 and 6, the cycle of exhibitions was born in the family palace in Guarene, in the province of Cuneo, where one of the Foundation's offices is still located. And here a history is written that is not only that of contemporary artists, but also of curatorship. Alongside Bonami, there were, in fact, figures such as Okwui Enwezor in 1998, who four years later would be the first non-European and African curator to curate the great German documenta event, bringing Giuseppe Gabellone there as the only Italian artist, discovered precisely in Guarene. "I remember a very young Hans Ulrich Obrist, who presented an even younger Urs Fischer". Needless to underline the notoriety of both today: the former a superstar curator and the latter counted among the most important contemporary sculptors, represented by galleries such as Sadie Coles HQ, Massimo De Carlo and Gagosian.

These were also the years in which the Foundation launched the first prizes, in collaboration with the Piedmont Region, so useful for supporting artists in their early years. In 1997, Mark Manders won it with his work A Self-Portrait in the Form of a Building, described in a beautiful letter that the artist wrote personally to the collector. A story that reaches 2024 with his first major solo exhibition in Italy at the Foundation in Turin (at Xavier Hufkens, values from 25,000 to 450,000 euro, rising for monumental outdoor sculptures).

La personale di Valentina Furian “Have you ever seen two animals fighting?” che si è conclusa lo scorso 20/7 a Palazzo Re Rebaudengo a Guarene, curata da Yueh-Ning Lee. (ph Mucho Mas!)

But Patrizia Sandretto did not remain stuck in the 1990s. She did not anchor herself to her generation. Over time, she has been able to follow new talents, also thanks to her collaboration with young curators. Some of them she has met thanks to the Young Curators Residency Programme, created in 2007: a residency programme for international curators developed together with schools from all over the world, which send their best graduates to the Foundation to discover the young Italian art scene. The programme guarantees collaboration with the artists to produce the works displayed in the end-of-course exhibitions and, at the same time, has initiated many Italian artists into the practice of the studio visit, which was not usual at the time. In 2012, another curatorial studies and practices course called Campo was also created, from which 118 Italian curators have passed. So many stories intersecting in the years to come. Right now at Artissima in Turin, a work by Valentina Furian, produced this year by the Foundation as part of the Young Curators Residency Programme, is being presented, chosen by the young Chinese curator Yueh-Ning Lee. The gallery presenting it is UNA in Piacenza, co-founded by Marta Barbieri, who attended the first edition of Campo in 2012 (price range from 2,000 to 10,000 euros).

Di Maurizio Cattelan alla mostra “News from the near future” per i 30 anni della Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. (ph Zeno Zotti)

Just as many artists who have been exhibited at the Biennale in Venice in recent years and who are receiving international recognition have come through these programmes, think of Diego Marcon, Giulia Cenci, Alessandra Ferrini.

But Sandretto's research, which has shown great flair, has always been global and attentive to the latest experiments. In 2015, in collaboration with the Kunsthalle Zürich, he showed paintings by the then 28-year-old American Avery Singer, in which painting converges with digital technologies. A few years later, her works were exhibited at the Venice Biennial and she became the youngest artist to join the Hauser & Wirth stable. In 2022, one of her works at auction touched the $5 million record. "We also presented Ambera Wellmann two years ago and she is now at Hauser & Wirth," Patrizia Sandretto continues. "Of Michael Armitage we had to shrink the exhibition in 2019 because in the meantime he was invited to the Venice Biennial (he too is now at Zwirner, which represents him together with White Cube, ndr). I also think of Mohammed Sami or Sanya Kantarovsky, who passed through here at the beginning of their careers. I don't say this as a boast, but with the satisfaction of having anticipated new things to the public and, in part, with the regret of not having bought more works before the values grew.

But how do you recognise talent? "It is very important to exercise your eye by looking at a lot of artists, to inform yourself, to visit museum exhibitions, to talk to curators, to collectors in countries you do not have easy access to, to artists, who are generous and often point you to good colleagues. You should never buy the name, but pay attention to the quality of the work'.