From 1981 to 1987 she was responsible for the contemporary art of the Castello del Buonconsiglio in Palazzo delle Albere in Trento, director of the MART – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto until 2011 and in 2011 took over the direction of the Civic Museums of Venice, which he directed for eleven years. Gabriella Belli, whose history is striking for its character and longevity at the helm of major Italian cultural institutions, adds a new chapter to her journey, this time entering Villa Panza in Varese as curator of scientific programming and temporary exhibitions. However, this is not a blank page, but rather the epilogue of a journey that began in the 1990s together with Giuseppe Panza di Biumo (Milan, 1923 – 2010), among the most important contemporary art collectors of the second half of the twentieth century, whose legacy is still preserved today in the magnificent eighteenth-century villa in Varese now owned by the FAI – Italian Environment Fund. And it is in progress right at Villa Panza, until 6 January 2025, In timean exhibition curated by Gabriella Belli e Marta Spanevello which brings together 59 works belonging to the collection that question this vast theme, with works by Hanne Darboven, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Jan Dibbets, Walter De Maria And Frank Vimercati, among others. It is on this occasion that Gabriella Belli, in this new role, told us about the most significant stages of the journey that brought her to Villa Panza.
How do you feel about having arrived in this reality after completing your experience at the helm of the eleven civic museums of Venice?
I have always considered Villa Panza as a jewel, a unicum, in which inside we find art, architecture and nature combined in a correspondence “of loving senses”. And I believe that every visitor realizes this, even unconsciously. So I’m happy. Anna Bernardini’s legacy is excellent, but naturally, as with any structure that wants to grow, there is a need to bring new energy and new ideas into play. But it’s the beautiful part of our job: designing!
We enjoy this harmony today because there was a design mind that conceived this place. Can you tell us about the professional and intellectual relationship with Giuseppe Panza di Biumo over time?
Giuseppe Panza was a very reserved man. My friendship with him was first and foremost a true, sincere one. We met in ’95, a year before the exhibition at Palazzo delle Albere in Trento. I contacted him at a delicate moment in his life, when there had been tensions in the Italian cultural world that had stopped the presence of his collection in some cities. But he was not discouraged, he had found his solution. For him, the exhibition at Palazzo delle Albere was like a prelude to what later happened in Varese: we are in fact talking about a Renaissance palace, which later became the first seat of the MART. Before him, I had hosted many exhibitions, including the Ileana Sonnabend collection that had opened the contemporary direction of my direction.
And how did it go?
He willingly accepted, personally setting up this exhibition, always with obsessive attention to detail. We learned a lot from him from a museographic point of view, the same sensitivity I had for that space that in 2002 I dedicated to his collection with a historical part in the room of what is currently the Mart of Trento and Rovereto. Even in that case he personally took care of the setup. He had a personal method in which he used squared sheets of paper and drew the entire layout of the works in pencil.
Have you ever disagreed?
Let’s say that over the years what I gained was the predisposition for dialogues between different works: his idea was to reserve every space for a single artist. On the contrary, I found that the dialogue between two or more artists was prolific, to see a certain moment through multiple glances in connection with each other, which complement each other. We have always had intense exchanges of opinion on this topic, a path that I have also pursued in Venice, working in parallel on ancient and contemporary through the Civic Museums. I find that the most interesting critical ideas arise from the comparison of different works.
And then?
Then in 2011 I managed to convince him to do this conceptual art exhibition, some of which are currently in the current exhibition at Villa Panza. Instead, he thought that the time was not ripe and continued to say this phrase, “it’s too early”. On the contrary, I thought that this was a strong point, an opportunity for discovery for the public. We held a magnificent exhibition in the MART spaces, which I still remember as one of my favourites.
And then there was Venice…
When I went to Venice I managed to showcase the historical part of the collection, exhibiting it at Ca’ Pesaro in 2016. An important moment which was followed, at that point, by the family, with a donation to the permanent collections, which I exhibited in 2022 on the ground floor of the Fortuny Museum before concluding the mandate. It is a story that is also part of the narrative of my journey and my professional growth, where his collecting has always represented for me a light in the crowding of contemporary art messages. A safe place where from an aesthetic, humoral and intellectual point of view I have always recomposed my questions about contemporary art. It’s a beautiful story that I try to honor at Villa Panza.
So it’s a homecoming for you.
Of course, otherwise I would never have accepted! When I left the direction of the Civic Museums of Venice I swore that I would never want to have an institutional role again, because I think after 40 years I have given so much. The option of Villa Panza was too important an attraction, thanks also to the Panza family and President Marco Magnifico.
In short, the call of Villa Panza prevented you from resting.
But this doesn’t tire me! Life in museums is so linked to my DNA that I do this job with so much joy and passion that it is impossible to get tired. However, I rediscovered the pleasure of going to museums as a visitor, entering through the main door and not from the offices, walking through the rooms together with the other visitors, stopping on the works that interest me most and not on loans or paintings that are the subject of work. Unlike consumer goods, museums do not sell out, indeed they do not have an expiry date. Museums are still a great source of spiritual and even existential regeneration.
You then said that Villa Panza is an oasis of peace and slowness. The first exhibition you curated is entitled Nel tempo”. Is it perhaps a coincidence?
It’s an ambitious theme to say the least! It is a theme on which writers, philosophers and scientists, physicists, astronomers have measured themselves up to alchemy. It is also a theme that I partly inherited from the previous director and which I respected. If we delve deeper into Giuseppe Panza’s collection, we understand that there are many artists that he purchased, finding a correspondence with his sense of anxiety towards the passage of time, but also interest in the way in which life is used and how art sometimes tries to retain time and make us feel the sound, the geography, the places. It’s an existential theme that has obsessed him in his collecting.
How will you ensure that temporary exhibitions play a valorisation role in the Villa? I would certainly like Villa Panza to gain more visibility in the world of house museums, which it truly is. As regards the temporary exhibitions, we will work on the theme of collecting, but also on the figures of important masters of the twentieth century who have never been presented in Italy until now, in that spirit of Panza which investigates a certain type of line of international art, that line saturated with existential values.
Can you give us some more previews?
We will then create project rooms of younger artists who are involved in some themes such as nature, sustainability and, again, time.
