Experiences

ILEANA SONNABEND & ARTE POVERA. A tribute exhibition to the life and work of the gallerist of Romanian origin Ileana Sonnabend.

The exhibition ILEANA SONNABEND AND ARTE POVERA, organized by the National Art Museum of Romania (MNAR) in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Romania, the Italian Institute of Culture in Bucharest and Antonio Homem from the Sonnabend Collection Foundation, is a tribute to the life and work of the gallerist of Romanian origin Ileana Sonnabend.

Ileana Sonnabend was born on October 25, 1914, in Bucharest, to one of the richest families in the Jewish high bourgeoisie of the city, the Schapira family, and died on October 21, 2007.

Having an inclination towards art and culture from a young age, she met in Bucharest the man who would become one of the most important promoters of American Pop Art, Leo Castelli, whom she married in 1933. Around the outbreak of the Second World War, the two go to New York where they establish an art gallery that will become one of the most important in the dissemination of American art from the middle of the 20th century. Ileana returns to Europe with her second husband, Michael Sonnabend, first to Rome and then to Paris. These experiences mark the itinerary that will transform Ileana Sonnabend into a prominent representative of 20th-century art, who promoted a dialogue between American and European art through the art gallery she opened in Paris in 1962, together with her second husband, Michael Sonnabend, and later in New York.

In the 60s, in addition to supporting American artists such as Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Ileana Sonnabend had deep and constant connections with Italy, paying particular attention to the Arte Povera current, theorized in 1967 by the critic Germano Celant, which remains today the most famous Italian artistic movement in the world.

To emphasize her visionaryness and openness to Italian art, the exhibition at MNAR focuses on the relationship between the gallerist and the Arte Povera artists she supported: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio, Mario Merz, Giovanni Anselmo, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Giulio Paolini, Jannis Kounellis. As a premise of the focus on the Arte Povera current, the exhibition also includes a tribute to Mario Schifano, who was the first Italian artist whose works were exhibited by Ileana Sonnabend and thus anticipates the deep connection between the Sonnabend Gallery and Italian art developed from the second half of the 60s.

The exhibition is not only the first that Romania dedicates to gallerist Ileana Sonnabend but also the first dedicated to her in the world that is not based on works currently included in her collection, the Sonnabend Collection. To distinguish itself from previous exhibition projects and to emphasize the still strong connection between Ilena Sonnabend’s life story and Italy through the Arte Povera movement, the exhibition at MNAR presents works that still belong to the artists and their heirs, as well as museums, foundations, private collectors, Italian gallery owners, exhibited by Ileana Sonnabend on the occasion of exhibitions organized in her gallery, or that she organized in other spaces.

The exhibited works made predominantly in the first part of the 1960s and the first part of the 1970s have already become emblematic of the history of art. Among them, we mention the mirror paintings Two Men in a Shirt (1963) and Girl Walking (1966) by Pistoletto, Torsion (1968) by Anselmo, and The Apotheosis of Homer (1970-71) by Paolini.

The exhibition of the works is preceded by a chronological, textual and photographic in-depth section about Ileana Sonnabend and by another in-depth textual and photographic section about her relationship with the artists of the Arte Povera movement.

The exhibition ends with a video documentary about the gallerist and Italian art, made on this occasion by 3D Produzioni and which will later be broadcast on Italian television.

This exhibition has a special relevance both for Italy, because it allows a better knowledge of Italian art abroad, but especially for Romania, because it is the first time that the legendary work of Ilena Sonnabend is presented in her country of origin.

The curator of the exhibition is Ilaria Bernardi, contemporary art historian, specialized in Italian art from the post-war period, with a particular focus on the artists of the Arte Povera movement, to whom she dedicated an important exhibition at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, in October 2023. A collaborated, among others, with Germano Celant, the one who theorized the Arte Povera current, and with Carolyn Christov Bakargiev. He has curated exhibitions for public institutions organized in important exhibition spaces in Italy and abroad, including: in Rome, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, MAXXI; in Lombardy, the Milan Triennale; Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese; in the USA: Magazzino Italian Art, Cold Spring (NY), ArtOmi (Gent, NY); South Africa, Keyes Art Mile and Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg; 6 Spin Street, Cape Town.