SPAZIO TAVERNA
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Futuro Antico. Interview with Massimo De Carlo
Ludovico Pratesi
With locations in Milan, London, Hong Kong, Paris, and Beijing, Massimo De Carlo's gallery is a landmark in Italy and beyond. We asked the esteemed gallerist to share his vision of the future.
What are your inspirational references in art?
I came to art through avant-garde jazz, which I discovered as a teenager. A trip to New York was then revelatory of the connections between music and the visual arts, and especially of the power of privileged relationships with artists.
What project represents you the most? Can you tell us about its genesis?
Some time ago, for archival reasons, we reconstructed the entire history of the gallery, from its founding in 1987 to today. Hundreds of exhibitions and special projects, monumental interventions and almost invisible gestures: over the years, the artists have shown me different facets of the gallery and even suggested other ways of operating a gallery. The gallery as a whole is what represents me the most – as a means to give a voice to the artists. I opened as a challenge at a time when it was adventurous to enter the market, and for a while, I had to keep my job as a pharmacist at night. It’s a genesis similar to that of others from my generation, gallerists from a world – without any nostalgia – that resembles very little what we see today in the art system.
How important is the Genius Loci in your work?
For some time now, we have been committed to finding extraordinary spaces whose architecture and history can provide further inspiration for our artists. A unique example is Casa Corbellini-Wassermann, the headquarters of the gallery in Milan, which, with its geometries and marbles, participates in the exhibitions; but my new gallery in London, on Clifford Street, is also characterized by decorations and colors typical of ancient London, in a 18th-century building. In Hong Kong, with Tai Kwun, and in Paris, on rue de Turenne, all the gallery's spaces are an antidote to the anesthetic quality of the white cube that standardizes and normalizes. The Genius Loci is an identity value for the gallery.
How important is the past for imagining and building the future? Do you believe the future can have an ancient heart?
We read the past with the language of the present, so it is inseparable from the perspective on the future. Therefore, the future can only have an ancient heart, but the mind must gather the stimuli of the present—the gallerist is a seismograph, synthesizing the spirit of the times through the voice of artists.
What advice would you give to a young person who wants to follow in your footsteps?
Maurizio Cattelan once said, “I know a blind gallerist, but there could never be a deaf gallerist.” With his proverbial ability to synthesize, he points out the path very well: keep your ears open, as well as your eyes.
In an era defined by post-truth, does the concept of the sacred still hold importance and strength?
I recognize the sacredness in some extraordinary places, both religious and non-religious. The Abbey of Chiaravalle, the Rothko Chapel, and the Kolumba Museum are unique and irreplaceable experiences for me, where art and architecture are capable of guiding both man and thought. In my work, I strive to transcend post-truth by placing the artwork back at the center of the debate, eliminating the white noise that too often obscures it. This is what we do with MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique in Paris: one artwork at a time, in a small space by choice, visible twenty-four hours a day, without openings, without celebratory dinners, and without rhetorical narratives.
How do you envision the future? Could you give us three ideas that you believe will guide the coming years?
If the present was considered liquid until recently, the future is increasingly gaseous and immaterial, and questions are becoming ever more at the mercy of the clouds that gather over contemporary issues. We certainly need to rethink our relationship with the planet: this is already an urgency, but we will all have to change our lifestyle, no passing the buck. Moreover, in an increasingly polarized economy, we must use technology even more to expand dialogue and reflection to actors outside the art system, in order to curb further elitism.