At home in the studio of Alberto di Fabio

What a wonderful, exuberant, whole-hearted artist! Let the work speak for itself.

Roma

Skye Ferrante: THE ART OF BURLESQUE

Rome Cavalieri and Tiepolo

After a full day of hanging out by the pool, my friend showed me the art collection in the lobby and bar at the Rome Cavalieri. The Tiepolo was bought at auction. It's great that it's in private hands on public view. There's more art, in the penthouse etc., by Warhol and some other Post War American greats.

Stash and Castello di Montecalvello

Stash was so kind as to show us around his family's home in Lazio, Castello di Montecalvello. Restored by Stash's father, Count Balthus Klossowski de Rola, the castle is beautifully maintained and still evolving. From the "Let It Be" electric guitar that Stash uses in his music studio, to the studio of Balthus that still has canvases on easels and a table where the artist worked, the castle offers the lucky recipient of a tour, a look into the present seen through the lens of the past. Charming, tall and handsome, when Stash smiles and looks off in a certain direction the sharp cheekbones and the shape of his nose in profile are a mirror image of his father.

Lunch in the garden at Galleria Continua with Kader Attia's mirrored headstones

The scent of gelsomino will forever remind me of Galleria Continua. Outside the walls of the garden are covered in those white flowers. Three friends started the gallery some 20+ years ago, a small modest gallery that showed young artists, student's work. The gallery is now converted into a wine bar and shop where you can sit and taste wines from the region, but you can still see on the walls the things that were used to hang paintings.

Pure inspiration these guys: Lorenzo, Maurizio and Mario (who I didn't meet because he was working in another place in Italy). To know these guys is to love these guys. They don't just have a gallery in San Gimignano; the whole town of San Gimignano is their gallery. It's amazing what they've done there and the happiness they exhibit working with the artists, with their staff, with collectors and with each other is so plain to see.

In the gallery there was a wonderful well that brought something so basic in man's history smack into the 21st Century with technology. I didn't photograph it, by an Italian artist from Milan who lived near the gallery, Loris Cecchini, but it was indeed a beautiful work. Also on view was the wall that protected Daniel Buren's balls in the Palais Royal in the 80s. Chen Zhen's Purification Room was to die for, as was Kader Attia's and Hans Op de Beeck's work. Better exhibitions I seldom see in some contemporary art museums.

There's a permanent installation by Anish Kapoor in the town too, and coming so close to the full moon lunar eclipse it was indeed quite a marvelous site to behold.

Vitra Museum

This was one of the first and therefore fun parties. We loved everything except the rain that prevented us from enjoying the outdoors.
Here's a cool video about the architecture: http://vimeo.com/12645187