Magazzino Italian Art
Hudson Valley, New York, USA
Architect: Miguel Quismondo
Proinller Activity: Installation of Reynaers large-format carpentry enclosure. Low Iron Glass.
Work Completion Date: 2016
Opening: 2017
The inauguration of Magazzino, the first New York art center designed by a Spanish architect (Miguel Quismondo), consolidates the Hudson River’s shore as an artistic magnet.
Few experiences are as liberating for a New Yorker as gazing at the constellations adorning the green roof of the Grand Central Terminal’s main lobby on a Saturday morning, without the continuous hustle and bustle of weekday travelers. And then boarding a train heading north along the Hudson River, a wide mirror reflecting the explosion of color from the forests in spring and autumn, making your way to the town of Beacon, to take a stroll to the Dia Art Foundation and encounter an impressive collection of American contemporary art housed in a former cookie factory. Andy Warhol, Walter de Maria, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Naumann, Richard Serra, Sol Lewitt, Dan Flavin, and many others are present.
On the other side of the river, the lush grove in this area opens up to the Storm King Art Center, a 200-hectare outdoor museum scattered with monumental sculptures by Mark di Suvero, Zhang Huan, Isamu Noguchi, and Richard Serra himself. Not far from Dia: Beacon is the Center for Curatorial Studies museum at Bard College, which includes contemporary fundamental names in its collection, such as Sherrie Levine, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe.
The latest addition to this bucolic “museum mile” is Magazzino, an art space dedicated to Arte Povera in Cold Spring, eleven kilometers from Beacon, also along the river that the explorer Henry Hudson navigated five centuries ago. Magazzino is the artistic brainchild of collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, an Italian-American couple who became acquainted with Arte Povera in the early ’90s. “We fell in love with that art. But we knew very little about it; we only knew Pistoletto and not much else,” explains Spanu over the phone from his home in Garrison. “So we started collecting, studying the movement, and reading a lot about it. The works we bought were getting bigger and bigger until we realized that having an exhibition space was more than a necessity.”
Thus, Magazzino was born, the container of one of the best collections of contemporary Italian art in the United States, including works by Pistoletto, Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Janis Kounellis, and Mario Merz, among others. The first exhibition is dedicated to Margherita Stein, the gallerist who, from her space in Turin, was one of the great promoters of Italian contemporary art. “She loved living with artworks, and that’s something we’ve tried to replicate,” says Olnick.
The traffic of art lovers who already visit Dia: Beacon or Storm King will benefit Magazzino, whose founders have coordinated their opening hours and days with their neighboring Beacon institution. “We have supported all the cultural institutions in the Hudson Valley since we moved here two decades ago, and now we are delighted to collaborate with them,” assures Spanu.
Miguel Quismondo
The execution of Magazzino was carried out by Miguel Quismondo, the first Spanish architect to design an art space in New York. His relationship with Magazzino’s founders, Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, goes way back
to when Quismondo worked at the studio of Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza, who designed and built his residence in Garrison, just minutes away from where the new art space has been inaugurated.
Similar to Dia :Beacon, the Magazzino project is based in a former industrial building erected in 1964 —a testament to the Hudson Valley’s recent industrial past— that had many previous uses: a meat processing factory, computer equipment manufacturing, and a dairy product warehouse. “We tore down walls and ceilings and kept the bones, which were in good condition. We liked them a lot and wanted to emphasize the industrial aspect of the building,” explains Quismondo. He added an extension to the building in an L shape to create a central courtyard that has become “the heart of the space.” Olnick and Spanu’s Arte Povera art collection is closely related to the design of the building, which maintains the idea of “necessary, simple, and readily available materials: concrete, metal, glass, and little else.”
The intention was for the architecture to also be “poor,” to serve as a backdrop for the artworks that is silent and discreet, not standing out, to enhance the enjoyment of the art. However, the design of the lighting in the building is highly elaborate and one of its main features. Quismondo aimed for the lighting to be “highly controlled and diffused,” to enhance the collection, which is predominantly composed of three-dimensional works. He found inspiration in the design of Dia:Beacon, an institution with which Quismondo hopes there will be a “symbiotic” relationship and where Magazzino will contribute to strengthening the artistic vitality of the Hudson Valley.
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Vía: ABC Cultura Arte