Based in London, Italian art collector Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo is an enthusiastic supporter of public museums, cultural organisations, and artistic projects, both in Italy and internationally. In 2010, she founded Fiorucci Art Trust to promote contemporary art in conventional and unconventional ways. The Trust produces artists’ commissions, publications, residencies and workshops every year in London as well as offsite. Nicoletta Fiorucci Russo is also Partner of Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters, a member of the Commissioning Committee of Hayward Gallery in London, and of the International Council of MASP in São Paulo.
LARRY’S LIST spoke to Nicoletta about how she fell in love with a late-17^th-century Dutch painting when she was 15; her most treasured artwork by Christodoulos Panayiotou; what motivated her to set up Fiorucci Art Trust; how Fiorucci Art Trust has been helping during this challenging period; and some emerging artists we should watch out for.

Collecting

What made you want to start collecting art? What is the main motivation behind your collection?
I’ve always held the belief that art has the capacity to heighten our existential dimension, and to offer it intensity. Collecting art offers me the possibility to live a richer life, to reach an expanded perception of reality.
This is the very reason why I began collecting, and from a very young age as a little girl. I fetched and treasured leaves, I was deeply inspired and mesmerised by their shapes and colours. I was attracted to their wafer thin and paper-like feeling. They gave me joy.
Some years later, I began a collection of Old Masters Drawings. It should come as no surprise that I was seduced by their filigree.

When did you fall in love with a piece of art? What was it?
I first fell in love with a piece by an anonymous Dutch artist when I was 15. My father brought me to an auction house: it was the first ever artwork I collected, a small oil on wood genre painting, it could have been from the late 17th up to early 18th century. The work represented shepherds in a bucolic rural landscape, but what was most seductive to me, beyond the layering of oil paint and the intensity it radiated, was the scene free from any religious subject matters or connotations.
Awareness in collecting arrived at a later stage, in my thirties. First, it was love at first sight. In my twenties, as I began to schedule all my commitments around auctions’ season, I started focusing on Italian and Dutch Post-Mannerist masters.
I was especially attracted by the glooming and romantic scenes of the Grand Tour. It is thanks to art historian Giuliano Briganti that I started looking at this period with new eyes. The abundance of religious themes was overwhelming, but then Briganti once said, “Nicoletta, you are animated by the same essence of the Grand Tour! The idea of intellectual freedom, and the necessity to explore the four corners of the mind, using the imagination to transcend physical borders and times”.

What is your focus regarding the artists in your collection? Why are you more interested in international emerging artists?
Emerging art allows for a connection with the present, with the world as it is now, throughout the possible visions artists offer about the future. Emerging artists have audacious readings of what we might not be able to decipher just yet, their worlds are like a kaleidoscope of ideas.

Is there anything in particular that unites all the works in your collection?
Every single one of my artworks exudes substance and meaning, regardless of its size or medium. They are all visually compelling in their own way — surely beauty is a relative concept. Whatever that might mean to you, I do believe the pleasure of both the eye and the mind must be satisfied.
I enjoy works which can both overwhelm and isolate the viewer, be experimental yet assertive, activate and still react to the space they are in. I’m not only interested in the artwork per se, but also how it interacts with its surroundings. I found the environmental dimension of many works incredibly appealing. Artist Nick Mauss, for example, paradoxically explores the inter-dimensionality of space by offering a portal from the walls on which his work is hung; while a sculptural work by Liliana Moro invades a room and reverberates in it, thus she is able to simultaneously create a feeling of formidable magnitude and loneliness. Another primal example that comes to mind is Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s “Jean Cocteau”, one of the first works we installed at Fiorucci Art Trust back in 2013. Conceived as a domestic space, it was difficult to understand where the fictional apparatus started or ended.
Although I enjoy finalised works in the traditional sense, I also support the element of risk and experiment, especially within the Fiorucci Art Trust. This is perhaps why I always found artists’ sketches so intriguing — they represent the freedom of creativity, from which the Fiorucci Art Trust thrives from. One example being Paulina Olowska’s theatre play “The Mother” which debuted its first steps on the cliffs of Stromboli for Fiorucci Art Trust’s yearly performative festival Volcano Extravaganza in 2012, and was later held in its full complexity at Tate Modern in 2015.
At their core, I value works which give a sense of freedom, fluidity and are devoid of preconceived expectation.

What were the first and the latest artworks you purchased?
The first artwork by emerging artists I bought when I started collaborating with Milovan Farronato, was a work by one of my dearest friends, artist Goshka Macuga. “Deutsches Volk – deutsche Arbeit”, 2008, consists of a glass structure refracting the space it inhabits. By reproducing the complexity of reality, the work explores knowledge as a process in constant flux.
As an unintentional file rogue, I’ve recently made the decision to acquire a new work by artist and friend Camille Henrot, whose practice I’ve been following for a long time. While the piece fulfills my longing to add one of her large bronze sculptures to my collection, it also draws an interdependent line to Goshka’s work. Consisting of a hyperbole of three question marks, the work represents the necessity of constant research and curiosity as one of the primary meanings of life. I have a special place in mind for it in my new home nearby Grasse, in the South of France, away from conventional highlight spots: it will be immersed in nature, eclipsed in the garden, suddenly revealing itself to those who wander.

How many artworks do you own? Where do you display your collection?
Neither do I have any perception of numbers nor, I must confess, do they interest me at all. Artworks keep me company in the homes I live in. I enjoy surrounding myself with them: some are so tiny, they can be kept like talismans in a drawer, ready to be disclosed. Others are rather impressively large-scale. Sadly, a relevant number is kept in storage, but I happily loan them to museums all over the world, and often for the long-term — I think it’s crucial, especially for young artists, that their works are exhibited, seen and recognised within the institutional and museum spaces.

Have you ever presented, or would you wish to present, your art collection publicly?
I believe my collection is deeply personal, an extension of myself — I see it as an emotional landscape. I prefer to reveal it in small cohesive parts; if I were to reveal it in its entirety, I would feel extremely exposed. I believe my collection is much like a dream, not to be shared with everyone. When the Fiorucci Art Trust moved to its new space in Chelsea Embankment in 2019, I showed a small part as our first exhibition, titled “In a Waiting Room”, which included among the others, works by Evgeny Antufiev, Katharina Fritsch, Celia Hempton, Koo Jeong A, Maria Loboda, Daniele Milvio, and explored a feeling of longing.

What is your most treasured artwork?
I perceive my collection as a breathing organism, with each piece having a specific aura. Different artworks appeal to different aspects of my life. Like one’s interpersonal relationships might fall in and out of favour to reflect growth and change, my preference in artworks reflects my inner self at that moment in time. This is why I never sold any of them.
If I have to name an artwork, the first one that currently comes to mind is a triptych from Christodoulos Panayiotou, which currently inhabits our bedroom in London. Inspired by traditional icons, the artist was able to shift the reference into an abstract and metaphysical plain, emanating a zen atmosphere.

Many collectors of emerging artists may enjoy interacting and building relationships with these artists. How important is it for you to meet the artists who created the artwork? How far can this experience be carried out online?
Meeting and knowing artists have been my primary motivations when collecting artworks. In the current climate, I continue to forge these relationships through digital media, by attending, for example, online studio visits with them. This is not only a privilege, but a necessity in order to continue nurturing mutual relationships with them, while sharing and imagining future projects together. One of these is an artistic residency in Grasse, when I will finally be able to participate again in their creative process in flesh.

Fiorucci Art Trust

What is your motivation behind setting up the Fiorucci Art Trust?
Being a collector since the age of 16, I was looking for different emotions, for something which could deliver an all-encompassing experience of what art had to offer — not merely an object to be owned, but something which can appeal to the senses. As artist Trisha Donnelly once said, the real experience is the one lived in the present moment.
The Fiorucci Art Trust was born out of the necessity to promote multi-sensory and ephemeral experiences through an unconventional approach. Together with its Curator and Director Milovan Farronato, we have always been purposefully choosing venues which we felt were imbued with spiritual magnetism, so to strengthen the intention of our projects, and amplify their meaning. For example, our Mychorial Theatre, a traveling symposium of artefacts and performance, through the years has been held from Sao Paulo to the Polish forest of Rabka Zdr​ój​, while Joana Escoval had a twilight walk through Lisbon’s Estufa Fria tropical greenhouse.
Our artists are at the core of what we do: we offer them a platform to experiment their creativity, and they have been giving me a new perspective on what art can be. For instance, it is thanks to artists like Lucy McKenzie, artistic leader of Volcano Extravaganza in 2013 that I allowed myself to finally enjoy contemporary paintings… At that time, I remember being stuck with other media, such as sculpture, video and collages. 

The Fiorucci Art Trust has carried out many projects. Which were your most memorable art moments?
The first one to come to mind is from 2012’s Volcano Extravaganza. Artist Andro Wekua balanced a large monolith on a cliff, before letting it go and hypnotizing the onlookers in a collective transcendental moment.
Another seminal moment for the Fiorucci Art Trust was in 2013, when I was invited by that year’s artistic leader of Volcano Extravaganza, Lucy McKenzie, to produce a fragrance inspired by the scents of the volcanic island of Stromboli, location of the festival. This unconventional commission allowed the Trust to look at a fragrance as a medium of ancestral and visceral representation.
Thus, later on in 2015, we embarked on a 10-month-long research project, together with London-based atelier Creative Perfumes, which culminated in a collective exhibition, “I’m Here But You’ve Gone”, at our headquarters.
This year, we are pushing the boundaries even further. We are currently in conversation with artist and smell researcher Sissel Tolass. We want to investigate scent as an alternative tool to explore cultural heritage.

Many artists have been facing big challenges especially during this difficult period. How do you think art collectors or Fiorucci Art Trust can help them?
Back in March 2020, the Fiorucci Art Trust was one of the first institutions to start working remotely when the pandemic spread to London. We moved our performative projects, such as Lezioni d’Italiano, online, transforming it to a long-duration experience for the public.
While I found it incredibly rewarding to collect works produced in this period, I believe it is important to keep supporting artists not only financially, but by nurturing a relationship with them too. Through mutual encouragement and heartfelt understanding, I hope to strengthen our personal and working relationships, while envisioning future projects together.
During this arduous period, we also had some artists in residence. Alex Cecchetti, for example, found refuge in Kastellorizo while Matilde Cerruti Quara recalibrated the energies of our London headquarters in Chelsea Embankment. We also helped to support other institutions, such as Castro Projects in Rome (an experimental program for emerging artists), and Liliane Lijn’s exhibition at Ordet space in Milan.
Art will never cease to exist, or to prevail, as it is an essential creation of the human mind.

What are the upcoming projects in 2021?
We are inaugurating 2021 with a new season of Lezioni d’Italiano, a project initiated in 2013 which explores, through a series of lecture-performances, Italian culture. While remaining in the digital sphere, each lesson will be accompanied by a limited edition by the artist, so to dance across the digital curtain into a more tangible experience.
Additionally, we are working on the tenth edition of Volcano Extravaganza, our yearly performative festival on the volcanic island of Stromboli. This iteration will hold a mirror to our times. Conceived as an initiatory rite, it will see each individual have a series of clues at their disposal, which in turn will help them to create personal paths. They will discover potential narratives and artistic experiences in different times, places and ways.
Lastly, in the past few months we have been having conversations with  important institutions, such as the Serpentine Galleries for their “Back to Earth” project; the Istanbul Biennale, and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.

What are your visions for the Fiorucci Art Trust in the upcoming five years?
The best is yet to come.
Our core identity has always been to be unconventional, receptive to change as well as to new ideas. In the future, we aim at maintaining this mercurial approach: staying in flux, free of judgment, and unattached from any expectation.
Indeed, we live in the Age of Aquarius, which happens also to be my zodiac sign.

Can you name some emerging artists who should be on our radar?
I’m attracted to artists whose practice may align to that of a Shaman; who show insightful, spiritual, and introspective expression, and a deeper understanding and connection to the environment. Now more than ever, I think it’s important to look at forms of collective restorative and therapeutic healing which intertwines with nature. This can be found in the work of  artists, such as Joana Escoval, Portia Zhavahera, and Mathilde Rosier; as well as Erika Verzutti, David Horvitz, Vivienne Suter, and Naufus Ramirez Figueroa.

Related: Fiorucci Art Trust
Instagram: @nicoletta_fiorucci_london

A selection of artists Nicoletta collects:
Camille Henrot
Christodoulos Panayiotou
Goshka Macuga
Koo Jeong A
Patrizio Di Massimo

 By Ricko Leung