The Rumma collection donated to Capodimonte

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At the museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, more than 70 works by Italian artists from the 1960s to the present will be donated, focusing on Arte Povera.

Palazzina dei Principi Ph Museum and Real Bosco di Capodimonte
A great gift for an (increasingly) amazing museum: the Museum and Real Bosco di Capodimonte will receive as a gift from the collector Lia Rumma a selection of over 70 works by about 30 contemporary Italian artists from the 1960s to the present, focusing on Arte Povera. The prestigious collection of works – which includes big names from Vincenzo Agnetti and Maria Lai to Michelangelo Pistoletto and Jannis Kounellis passing through Ugo Mulas, the spouses Merz, Giulio Paolini and Pino Pascali – will be exhibited in Palazzina dei Principi of the Neapolitan Museum, built by the Carmignano awnings of Acquaviva before the palace and today placed in front of its façade, which will be restored and adapted ad hoc on a project by the architect Ippolito Pestellini.
Ettore Spalletti and Lia Rumma ph Galleria Lia Rumma
Ettore Spalletti and Lia Rumma ph Galleria Lia Rumma

CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTION BY LIA AND MARCELLO RUMMA

Lia Rumma Gallery, which since 2010 has a large Milanese headquarters in addition to the historic headquarters in Via Gaetani in Naples, boasts a very rich collection and can be said to represent some of the most important living artists. It all started in the sixties when the young Salerno collectors Lia and Marcello Rumma they began promoting exhibitions and events in their own city with a new generation of out-of-the-box artists. These first proposals fused art and criticism, also thanks to personalities such as Renato Barilli and Germano Celant, who curated the groundbreaking exhibition Bad art plus bad actions. The couple founded a publishing house in 1969 as the cultural arm of artistic activity, and – after Marcello’s death in 1970 – Lia moved to Naples and opened her gallery the following year with the personal The Eighth Study (AAIAI) Proposal 6 by Joseph Kosuth. The research immediately turned to national and international contemporary artistic movements (Arte Povera, Minimal Art, Concepual Art) and their protagonists, and then carried out in-depth research activities and close collaboration with institutions such as the Superintendence for the Artistic and Historical Heritage of Naples. Today, the gallery stable houses names such as Marina Abramovic, Anselm Kiefer, William Kentridge, Gian Maria Tosatti And Joseph Kosuth. In an ever-increasing opening of the legacy accumulated over the decades, in 2012 Rumma opened the house Palazzo Donn’Anna – where part of his private collection is visible – while in 2018 he worked to make the historical and personal Archive accessible with exhibitions made with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the MADRE Museum in Naples.
Lia and Marcello Rumma ph Gallery Lia Rumma
Lia and Marcello Rumma ph Gallery Lia Rumma

MORE CONTEMPORARY ART AT THE CAPODIMONTE MUSEUM

Paintings, sculptures, photographs, works on paper: the donated works have been added to the modern department of the museum and the Real Bosco di Capodimonte, which – in addition to being in ’87 the first museum of ancient art that presented an exhibition of contemporary art with Alberto Burris solo exhibition – boasts a collection of over 160 works and is the only institution in Italy that has preserved and exhibited art from the 13th century to the present day. “There are lives that consist of passion and sacrifice, lives that are conscious that you can not win without intelligence and vision: among these heroic fighters there are collectors who have insight into the art of their time, who have understood the deep messages , which art always introduces into our lives and into the world around us. It is these collectors who write history, and therefore museums, reminiscent of human sensitivity and genius, represent the natural destination of their collections.Commented the museum director Sylvain Bellenger. “With the collection’s gift to Capodimonte, Lia and Marcello Rumma enter the story, but even more so, they make the story step into Capodimonte, a story they witnessed and starred in when, in their late sixties with Arte Povera, Italian art has radically entered the contemporary world“.

– Giulia Giaume

Art events underway in Naples

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