Food has always had a place and a very distinct role in art, from the ancient world to today. Food is the protagonist in still life paintings and an important iconographic element with manifold implications and meanings inside the religious pictures of all time.

The first to distort the meaning of food was Arcimboldo who, already in the sixteenth century, enjoyed painting singular portraits with fruit, vegetables and funny zoomorphic elements, for the amusement of the Habsburg court.

In modern and contemporary art, it will be enough to remember Salvator Dalì, whose Bust of a Woman wears a hat in the form of a baguette and corn-like cobs to frame the face. Magritte instead messes up all our pseudo-certainties by stating that a design of an apple is not always just an apple (Ceci c’est n’est pas une Pomme, 1964, priv. coll.), while the true gastronome of Pop Art, Claes Oldenburg with his wavy sculptures reproduces comfort food like ice cream, fries, hamburgers and cakes.

To learn more, we interviewed Roberto Casamonti, founder of Tornabuoni Arte and an internationally renowned art collector.

Inside one of the most representative examples of Renaissance architecture in the city, the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni overlooking Piazza Santa Trinita, the heart of Florence’s parlour, on 25 March 2018 you opened a new Art Collection, set up with the instinct, determination, sensitivity and passion of a true philanthropist and patron. What did this place represent for your life and your career?

“The collection represents the synthesis of a journey that has lasted many years. It is the testimony of my dedication to art, something that has always been part of my life. Over time, I have loved and selected the works that today form the core of my collection. The complete body of the paintings and sculptures covers a chronological span from the early twentieth century to the present day, with attention to both Italian and international artists. This articulated visual panorama arises from a careful research I have conducted all along my life. It also represents my love for art, which has always distinguished every choice I have taken. I thought I wanted to share my collection with the city of Florence, with which I have a special bond and ensure that the values ​​that art carries might not just be an exclusive experience but a shared one. I wanted my works to be housed in a building that represented the collective imagination of Florence – continues Casamonti – a building whose history, linked to its architectural importance, constitutes one of the landmarks of the city. In this regard, the choice of the noble floor of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni was propitious. Considered one of the most beautiful and well-known buildings in our city, this palazzo – built by Baccio d’Agnolo in 1520 – is located in a focal point of the historic centre of Florence, where Via Santa Trinita ends and Via Tornabuoni begins. Via Tornabuoni is a place I feel emotionally close to, as it was in this street, in 1981, that I inaugurated my first gallery, which got its name from it. In coming back to this place, the circularity that defines my life story marks my human and professional journey from its origins to today. The birth of the Collection represents the epilogue.”

In your opinion, has the relationship between artists and food changed? How has this relationship over the centuries been perceived, for example, from Caravaggio’s “Basket of Fruit” to Daniel Spoerri’s work?

“In ancient art, the principle that designated the iconography of the works was the “mimesis” for which the reproduction of the reality was one of the main aims of art. The truth was also legible according to several levels; it conveyed a set of symbols that traced the path of more sophisticated readings. The representation of the truth was a way to communicate art to everyone, the reproduction of the real aimed at stimulating emotions arising from the progressive experience of reality in its pictorial guise. Contemporary art sanctions a substantial change; art no longer represents the world but “presents” it. It is enough to remember when Jannis Kounellis (one of his works is part of the Collection) realized an exhibition at Fabio Sergentini’s Roman Gallery with 12 live horses, in 1969. Art leaves the borders of the picture and becomes real life; it subverts the concept of still life with that of nature as a perpetually vital condition, which can involve the viewer with its physical and sensorial presence. Similarly, Daniel Spoerri and his Tableaux Piége make an everyday moment indelible (a work belonging to this cycle is visible in the Collection). The tables still have traces of a finished meal, of an experience linked to a condition of reciprocity among the diners, which now becomes an eternal instant, escaping the habit of time. In this, we grasp an evolution of the concept of still life: it is no longer the aesthetic suggestion that persists over time but the experienced time that reveals itself suggesting the human presence”.

Of all the pieces of art collected in over fifty years of activity, is there one or more of one work linked to the theme of food you would like to have?

“In the Collection, there is an Achrome by Piero Manzoni. It would be interesting to have an Achrome with bread rolls, where, in this case, the bread loses its consistency of food and becomes Art. The work of art no longer highlights the ability to imitate reality, as it did in ancient art, but becomes a subjective expression. The artist uses objects taken from reality to compose the structure of his painting and with a subversive act, of a strictly conceptual nature, transfers the objects from the real dimension to the ideal dimension of art”.

What does food represent for you? Is it nourishment for the body or also passion, nourishment for the soul, with a strong emotional and evocative component as the famous passage from Proust’s madeleine reminds us?

“Proust’s madeleine moment passage analyses a daily experience that displays profound hidden meanings. Time merges between the memories of the past he perceives in the present through a purely sensory element, linked to taste. Lost time, in the sense of historical time, relives in the contemporary world through an emotional journey that starts from an objective condition: the tasting of the madeleine. Proust writes that he “hears the noise of the spaces he has travelled” making sure that the past can relive in the emotions of the present. Food – concludes Casamonti – has this faculty of being the repository of memories, traces of time that re-emerge intact from history. In this sense, there is a relationship with art, since the past linked to the work of art relives in the present whenever it hits our sensitivity. What remains in both cases, is the masterful possibility that time has to deny itself.”

FIAMMA DOMESTICI