My Afternoon at the Grand Lair of The Leopard

I took a break from Manifesta when through the graces of a good friend I was able to spend a few hours with Gioacchio Lanza Tomasi, one of the models for Tancredi, the soldier who is ‘adopted’ by Don Fabrizio, the Prince in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo.

A recent Film Society tribute to Visconti shows the enduring admiration of the film version of the novel—it was their most well attended retrospective ever. 

Tomasi, himself from an aristocratic family, inherited the last remaining palazzo of Lampedusa’s. Though it now houses the cooking school of his wife Nicoletta, and a B and B, its major floors and reception areas have been lovingly maintained and replenished. I felt as if I had entered into the film as I follow Tomasi down its grand balustrade, trod its polished marble and parquet flooring, looked up at its elegant chandeliers,and out its grand windows overlooking the Mediterranean,and gazed upon its many leather bound books in the library, and family paintings and drawings by artists as well as manuscripts of the novel in vitrines. 

Tomasi has had a distinguished career as a musicologist, opera administrator, professor and writer.  His Biography Through Images of Lampedusa is a trove of unpublished photographs of Lampedusa’s very interesting lineage and marriage, as well as a few gems of Tomasi in intense conversation with Visconti as the film was in production.

Over tomato crostini and prosecco, we chatted about the film, the novel, life in Palermo as well as his views on Manifesta. 

I think however that my tour of the palazzo guided by Tomasi says more than any words could.  I recommend also a reading of The Leopard and of Tomasi’s biography as they are very good records of the Sicily which once was, and still exists in pockets in Palermo and cities like Ragusa, Noto and Scicli. 

Post Zang Tumb Tuuum. Art Life Politics: Italia 1918–1943

The Prada Foundation in Venice, always a sumptuous experience has now become even more spectacular with the latest addition of Rem Koolhaas’s Torre, a multi story tower with installations that culminates in a restaurant modeled after the Four Seasons.  It was closed when I was there so I cannot report on that, only that the spicy tuna sandwich at the original cafe was delicious and fast.

You need to be fast because there is much to see, especially now Post Zang Tumb Tuuum, a show that would not have been possible just a few years ago on the art of Italy pre and post WW2.  It begins with the great Futurists (I can never have enough Boccocconi or Severni, though there are not the best examples here) and carries on through the Fascistic era.  Now, buildings and paintings we once thought were edifici non grata are being newly rediscovered as examples of a certain style.  Much of this art would have passed as Flea Market Art about a decade ago and it is still not the strongest period, but the curators have added vintage books, posters and ephemera and so we have an understanding of the motivations. 

I am a bit of a sucker for this stuff, even in its middlebrow incarnations, because in the aggregate there is an elegance that defies the often repressive or anti Semitic period during which it was made. Artists such as de Chirico had already been fingered, but there are many society painters and designers who must have been working with one eye closed.

It’s a very large show which takes up many pavilions and I recommend it both as an artifact and a welcome addition to scholarship of the period which many of us having been avoiding. 

A local very knowledgeable friend who accompanied me on my visit said, “Who knows how long this all can last? “ By that she meant that retail luxury business is down worldwide and that Prada too had been affected.  Though many luxury houses have contributed mightily to the arts, I would have to say that the scholarship at Prada is always top drawer and introduces me to work with an excellent historical perspective.

Fondazione Carriero

Situated behind a red brick facade with barely a number outside is the Fondazione Carriero,  yet another private foundation begun by a wealthy founder.  

Tucked away inside a 14th-15th century private Milanese home, redone by Gae Aulenti (this much more successful than the Musee d'Orsay) originally for a bank, the quiet galleries are both hidden and free and open to the public. 

Still, this one is so tasteful as to be modest and for two more weeks, an elegant Sol Le Witt show curated by Rem Koolhaas and Francesco Stocchi is on view.  Le Witt is mostly represented at Dia and at Mass Moca in huge installations where he loses me. Here, I found a measure of contemplation that worked.

Museo Del Novecento

The Museo de Novecento is stuffed into a wonderfully fascistic building Palazzo dell'Arengario next to the Duomo, which I never recognize anymore, as it is white now instead of the black I remember. Tourists throng the square but Milan is still mostly free of American tourists (to their detriment. It is a wonderfully rich city).

Though poorly retrofitted, the collection inspires a certain admiration: it is filled with Italian futurists and local artists, unknown to us, but worthy of attention.  And at the top, the view of the Piazza is splendid.