O n the occasion of Im Spazio: The Space of Thoughts—the landmark evening auction dedicated to works from the personal collection of Daniella Luxembourg—collector, dealer, and tastemaker Luxembourg sat down with art advisor Allan Schwartzman to discuss the formation of her collection. From setting an auction record at the time of sale with the purchase of her Michelangelo Pistoletto to the provenance of her Alexander Calder mobile, Luxembourg shares her ethos behind collecting the masterworks of Im Spazio: The Space of Thoughts. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Allan Schwartzman: Most of what you have collected, and most of what your gallery has dealt with, is often referred to as European taste. Would you please talk about your taste in art: what you choose to exhibit as a dealer, and what you choose to buy as a collector?
Daniella Luxembourg: I was educated with a background in European art, and a strong focus on both literature and archeology. Early on in my career I saw an exhibition, curated by Sara Breitberg-Semel, which was called “Want of Matter” and identified in Israeli art of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s the use of “meager” artistic materials combined with a social critique, very much in the spirit of Arte Povera. This radical expression, both philosophically and in material terms, is what I like about the works I purchased, and I had this in front of my mind when I was looking. I loved this not only in visual art, but also in literature, in music, in dance. When I encountered that expression, when I learned about it and had the opportunity to purchase examples of it, I bought it! It always spoke to me, it felt like a language I knew.
AS: You have exhibited Pop Art, but it's been of a very European tenor, not of an American one.
DL: That’s mostly true. Claes Oldenburg was a friend, and although Swedish, his practice is at the heart and soul of the American Pop identity. Therefore, when Soft Switches came for auction, I thought it was so good—I couldn’t let it go. We live a life in which we accumulate things around us without thinking exactly where it is from or that it will form a collection. Collecting becomes a way of life, like consuming music, or reading.
AS: That’s excellent. These works have been centerpieces of your collection, which you've lived with in your house in New York. Let’s start with the Fine di Dio—Fontana made 38 of these paintings, and between the two of us, we've probably seen more than three quarters of them in person. What drew you to yours in particular?
DL: This Fine di Dio didn't have the typical pattern of holes: it had that slash in the middle and holes in the shape of Fontana’s fingers, which made it so much more radical. It looked to me like an impassioned cry. What I also love is the materiality: there is so much paint, and the glitter makes it so three-dimensional. The canvas moves with the slash in this terribly dramatic way. It’s very austere and very forceful.
AS: Let’s look for a moment at the Fontana painting from 1952, with the buchi and this incredibly rare painted form, which appears almost printed on the canvas. 1952 is a very important year in terms of the buchi paintings, most of which are this size or smaller.
DL: We all know that the most difficult thing for an artist is to do is cut a canvas—it’s like cutting their body. It's impossible. When Fontana created these buchi, he pierced them from back to front. I was so interested in the evolution of this radical gesture in Fontana’s mind, and we see here how it works so early on in his life. There is a slight hesitation in the work, and I love how he put that cosmic configuration on top as though he had to impose order on the composition. You see a certain amount of effort in this work, which there is less of in the later tagli canvases. One of the reasons that I love Cézanne watercolors so much, for example, is that whenever he painted, you can feel that it was not easy for him. I love that feeling.
AS: Yes, and its image is totally unique. It possesses a sense of experimentation more than any other that I’ve seen of this period or date with the holes punctured in a square pattern, too. Your collection is really driven by this sense of experimentation—your Cretto, for one. You know Burri extremely well, and you’ve shown great Burris, Cretti in particular.
DL: There was something so dramatic about Nero Cretto. There are not very many large Cretti, especially divided the way that Nero Cretto is, and the process of its creation was so experimental. Burri never knew how these would end as the process of experimentation with the poured plastic and the drying agent was not completely in his control. I found this one monumentally beautiful with the dramatic cracks.
AS: Your Fabro is another work with this same rigorous materiality, this time with lead. It’s a very special addition for collections in the United States. The lead lends its own properties that come into play with how the work exists, yet it has these fanciful curls all around it, which I think distinguishes it amongst the Italias.
DL: I was offered my Fabro which was included at the famous Christian Stein exhibition in 1975. I couldn’t believe that I had the opportunity to buy such a mythic work—this is the lead work from the series of the Italias which Fabro did in various materials and references the turbulent political period referred to as the “Years of Lead.” Here you have Italy under lead, with these funny, ridiculous, yet terribly important curls, which are soft when you touch them. That softness is a critical way through which Italian art marries Pop and looks at Italy in a completely different way. I was honored to buy it. It's one of the works I really love.
AS: Was it that same material subversion that brought you to your interest in Pascali and this Tappeto?
DL: I have been very fortunate to place some major Pascalis in very big collections. A major Pascali exhibition in America is something that this country needs to see—he is one of the most important artists of the second half of the twentieth century, for so many reasons. When I saw Tappeto, it looked fabulous in its historic frame, and featuring the steel wool he used in some of his most important works. As you say, his material subversion spoke to me.
AS: Let's talk for a moment about the most representational work of the group: the Pistoletto, which I think of as the banner image of this collection.
DL: I first saw the Pistoletto when Alma was working at Christie’s in 2005. I was sitting in the auction room, probably bidding for another client, and Maria nuda came up for sale. Of course, as a dealer, my primary interest is fulfilling the requests of my clients, so I didn’t look very closely at it. But when it came up, I couldn’t believe how good it was, not only because it was such a personal subject for Michelangelo to depict his wife Maria but also the way the image was placed on this reflective background. It’s the most baroque form of Arte Povera one can have, if you even consider it Arte Povera. There was great interest when I started to bid for it, and in the end, I paid the record price. Alma could not believe it. After I finished working, I came to the rostrum and asked her, “It’s in good condition, isn’t it?” I hadn’t even had the time to ask! I would never buy for a client without asking about the condition, but we buy differently for ourselves. She said, “Yes.”
AS: Another figure in your collection more obliquely related to Arte Povera is Sal Scarpitta. Born in Italy, having lived mostly in the United States, Sal showed with Leo Castelli early on and throughout his life, yet he never achieved the acclaim of so many other Castelli artists. I had the great fortune of working with Sal, and I’ve never met a person who was as dynamic as he. He remains one of the most undervalued, important artists of the Post-War period.
DL: A client asked me to go to Paris to inspect the Durand-Dessert Collection at Sotheby’s in 2005. I was bidding in the room, and like with the Pistoletto, I was amazed by Helikon’s monumentality. I own other works by Scarpitta, but none are so monumental and magnificent in their expression.
AS: I loved your story about spontaneously paying the record price at the time for your Pistoletto. As a dealer, do you feel that willingness to pay beyond the market for works you choose to live with?
DL: At the end of the day, if you want to buy a work of art—if it's the right thing, and the right date, and the right image, and the right everything that you want—you have to bid it up. We have to be in front of these works we believe in, so it's normal to pay record price for things.
AS: You have one of the most sophisticated and laser-sharp eyes in the field, often looking where others have not. What role, if any, has provenance played in your decisions of what to collect?
DL: Radical and critical works—it doesn't matter whether by Magritte, Manet, Cézanne, Scarpitta—if it is very, very good, it will have belonged to very good people before you. There is no other way. This doesn’t mean that the people before you purchased these works for a lot of money, no—only that they had a critical eye. You, me, Alma, and all of us are in praise of great collectors, and I have many works in my collection that came from very great collectors, who didn’t necessarily purchase works for expensive sums of money but made acquisitions with a certain conviction. Armada, for instance, I had wanted to buy from Claude Berri for a client for years. Claude had one of the best collections in France, and I sold many things for him. I begged him to sell the Armada, and at the time, he said no. He told me that if he ever sold it, it would be for a huge amount that I couldn’t afford. Then one day, I opened a Christie’s catalogue and saw the Armada for what I thought was a very cheap estimate. I couldn’t sleep that night. I was so worried that somebody else would buy it. But you know what? I bought it for the reserve.
AS: What are some other moments that were influential in your collection? Exhibitions you saw, artists you met, your searches for art for collectors you advise.
DL: There were so many. We spend our time seeing exhibitions and collections, and we are very fortunate to have conversations with people who share that. We have created a certain community, a worldwide community.
AS: You created such a rich community in your home, too.
DL: I’ll tell you what, my house once belonged to a great collector! Pierre Matisse was a fantastic collector—a collector before his time—and the space of the house has great European volumes. There is a certain softness to it, though, that works so well with the materials of the works in the collection. The home really brought the collection to life, and it inspired me to continue my pursuit for these radical expressions.
AS: On top of your own, of course, you’ve spent your whole life building collections and advising collectors. Opening up your own collection to the world and allowing us to see the decisions you've made is quite inspiring: to collectors, to dealers, to anybody along this journey. What advice would you give to collectors who are trying to do it like you did?
DL: We are all in the art world. We also all have our own personal inclinations, but you have to learn about them. We should all be learned people, because that journey is so rewarding. So the advice is—if you spend money on it, take it seriously.
