Sveva and Francesco Taurisano: art belongs to everyone
"We started with a basic question and that is what it means to have an art collection today". Sveva and Francesco Taurisano are the soul of an atypical collection - the Taurisano Collection of Naples -, based not on buying for one's own enjoyment, but on sharing with the public.
A different way to buy art. The Neapolitans Francesco Taurisano and Sveva D'Antonio , now husband and wife, as well as a couple under 40 who are tracing a new path to collecting in Italy , started from here about ten years ago. What Francesco's father, Paolo, had started in the 1970s by gathering around 200 works according to the traditional dynamics of purchasing for his own personal pleasure, thanks to them is transformed into acquisitions designed from the outset to be shared with the public. . “We started from a basic question and that is what it means to have an art collection today” , say the Taurisano family. «The fundamental aspect of our commitment is to pay attention to the works we select. Through our choices, we try to offer alternative information and to investigate how artists today see and represent contemporaneity » .
Of the current over 400 works acquired, 60% are made by female artists and the different works are visible in rotation in the installations that follow one another in their home in Naples, open to the public all year round by appointment. "We have a constant desire to share what we discover to the utmost power, which is why we don't limit ourselves to the works exhibited in our apartment," adds the couple. “We have created activations with some institutions so that the purchased work is immediately donated to be exhibited. For emerging artists it is vital to be able to count on the legitimacy of presence in museums or contemporary art institutes. If they focus only on the art market, they risk turning into meteors destined to vanish into thin air » .
Specifically, it is “Because of Many Suns” , the purchase-prize established in 2020 during the lockdown to support artists and galleries in that complex scenario and alongside the Art-o-rama fair in Marseille. Among the new names present in the event, an international jury identifies the talent to be valued, buying the work and then always offering it in the city to the FRAC - Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain , to propose it to its visitors. The Catalan Anna Dot and the South African Mary Hurrell won the first edition, while this year the award went to the Parisian artist Inès Di Folco, with the work “Constellation”. "Our goal is sharing and we will increasingly try to strengthen exchanges with the public to make young artists even more visible in the world."
