Furla Foundation, Milan
Since its inception in 2008, the Fondazione Furla has played a pioneering role among the organizations founded by Italian designer labels to support contemporary art. Giovanna Furlanetto is the president of the leather-goods maker, founded in 1927 in Bologna, but with locations in Milan and near Florence. Although not an art collector herself, Furlanetto continues to prove her passion for the public display of art through a variety of innovative initiatives.
In 2008, the Italian Order of Merit for Labor (Ordine al Merito del Lavoro) was awarded to Giovanna Furlanetto, not just for her family’s work as craftsmen over generations, but also for her efforts as a patron of contemporary art. In 2000, Furlanetto launched a rigorous program of patronage for the visual arts through the Furla Art Award (Premio Furla per l’Arte). Until 2015, this important prize was awarded by the curator Chiara Bertola in consultation with leading artists, such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kiki Smith, Mona Hatoum, Marina Abramovic, Christian Boltanski, and Jimmie Durham.
For more than ten years, the prize shone a light on the young Italian artists for whom it was created, earning them the attention of Italian and international museums. In 2016, the decision was made to suspend the prize in order to update the patronage program, streamlining and expanding the forms of support through a series of annual exhibitions intended to be as inclusive as possible. This new vision was facilitated in part by the passing of a law in 2016 meant to encourage partnerships between the public and private sectors – a necessity in Italy, where culture (and art in particular) is not strongly supported by the government, and where the private sector plays an essential role. In fact, luxury brands and leading art collectors have been a part of this dynamic since the early 1990s, mitigating the absence of contemporary art museums by acting from time to time as a city’s primary capital investors for art. Take Turin, for example, the birthplace of the arte povera movement, where the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Merz, Pistoletto, and Agnelli foundations, the Castello di Rivoli museum, and the Artissima art fair have transformed the city, making it a destination for Italians and international visitors alike. Since 1993, Milan’s Fondazione Prada has been the leader among fashion houses in this regard. For the past four years, the foundation has been housed in a vast complex to the south of Milan, designed by Rem Koolhaas and expanded in spring 2018 with a concrete tower housing 2,000 sq m of additional space. With this bold vision, the complex confirms the city’s commitment to art. In the north of the city, the Fondazione Pirelli takes advantage of the expansive Hangar Bicocca to house its excellent programs. As for the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, under the leadership of Beatrice Trussardi it has shouldered the double task of presenting contemporary art to the public, and renovating and highlighting special places in Milan. These include Palazzo Litta or the much-visited Piazza del Duomo with the adjacent Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade, which featured the installation of Elmgreen and Dragset’s Short Cut (2003), a Fiat Uno and a caravan emerging from underground.
The Fondazione Furla’s efforts have evolved quickly yet organically. Bruna Roccasalva – who in 2009 co-founded Peep-Hole, a site-specific art space unique in Italy – was brought on board in 2016 to take over the foundation’s artistic direction. “When we decided to suspend activity at Peep-Hole, Giovanna Furlanetto asked me to collaborate with the foundation,” Roccasalva says. “Her project of forming partnerships with Milanese museums and institutions to present contemporary art immediately interested me.” In autumn 2016, the foundation collaborated with the Museo del Novecento to present an art collection that, thanks to the efforts and loans of private collectors and philanthropists, boasted some four-hundred works from the 20th century. The first art programs were debuted the following year: a series of artist presentations, roundtables, seminars, workshops, concerts, and guided visits. Although it was founded to support Italian artists, the foundation has now changed direction to promote international art of great relevance, in keeping with its ambition to make contemporary art more widely available in Italy. “Time After Time, Space After Space,” the inaugural program, gathered a wonderful group of international artists – Alexandra Bachzetsis, Simone Forti, Adelita Husni-Bey, Christian Marclay, and Paulina Olowska – in a series of performances. “We want to showcase all artists, regardless of their nationality, but especially ones who haven’t yet been shown in Italy, in rich and sophisticated projects,” Roccasalva says. Through the financing of loans, transportation, and insurance that the Museo del Novecento’s limited budget would not have been able to sustain, the foundation’s collaboration was both a must-see for visitors and an act of support for public institutions. In autumn 2018, a partnership with Triennale Milano welcomed the Korean artist Haegue Yang in the second installment of the new programming. “Haegue Yang: Tightrope Walking and its Wordless Shadow,” her first solo show in Italy, was accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue of close to five-hundred pages. “I’m lucky to share a vision with Giovanna Furlanetto,” Roccasalva says. “She has given me her full confidence to schedule programs as I see fit, and yet she is also extremely involved and supportive. She believes that art can change things, that it’s a mirror held up to society. To show international artists on Italian soil is for her a way of participating in the country’s culture.” Another Milanese institution has been selected to host the solo show of a famous international artist for next spring.