ART CITIES:Porto-The Sonnabend Collection Part II
Ileana Sonnabend helped shape the course of postwar art in Europe and North America. A gallerist and noted collector, Sonnabend discovered and championed many of the most significant artists of her time. While known for her support of the prime artistic protagonists of Pop Art, Minimalism, Arte Povera, Post-Minimalism and Conceptual Art, Sonnabend’s engagement continued up to her death in 2007.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art Archive
The exhibition “The Sonnabend Collection. Half a Century of American and European Art. Part II” at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art is devoted to the Sonnabend Collection, and is the continuation of the exhibition “The Sonnabend Collection. Half a Century of American and European Art. Part I” (6/2-8/5/16). The exhibition surveys two prevalent themes in the Sonnabend Collection: the use of photography starting with Conceptual Art in the 1960s until the present; and the work of artists from the 1980s which relate to Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art. The exhibition includes works by Gilbert & George, Bernd and Hilla Becher, John Baldessari, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Candida Hofer, Haim Steinbach and Ashley Bickerton, among others. A presentation of sculptures by Jeff Koons, produced between 1985 and 2012, constitutes a small retrospective exhibition of his works. Ileana Schapira was born in Bucharest, Romania. Her father was a successful businessman and financial advisor to King Carol II of Romania. She met Leo Krausz (later Castelli) in 1932 and married him a year later. In 1935 they moved to Paris and opened an art gallery there, with René Drouin, before emigrating to New York in 1941. Leo Castelli joined the US army, and Ileana studied at Columbia University, where she met Michael Sonnabend, whom she was to marry in 1959. In the 1940s and 50s the Castellis initiated a collection of art that included works by Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock. In 1957 they opened their first Gallery in New York. Together they discovered and exhibited the work of: Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and began lifetimes of showing new art, beginning with Neo-dada and Pop Art (Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist). Late in 1962 Michael and Ileana Sonnabend opened the Galerie Ileana Sonnabend in Paris, where they exhibited the work of American artists but also the work of several young Italians, beginning with Mario Schifano (1963) and Michelangelo Pistoletto (1964), followed by Gilberto Zorio, Mario Merz and Giovanni Anselmo (1969), Piero Paolo Calzolari (1971), Jannis Kounellis (1972) and others. In 1970 Ileana Sonnabend opened a gallery in New York, moving in 1971 to the SoHo district, together with the Castelli Gallery, thus spurring a migration of the Contemporary Art scene in New York. She opened her SoHo gallery with a now-celebrated performance by Gilbert & George. As she continued, through her gallery and collecting, to register new art as it emerged on both the European and the New York scene: Minimalism, Arte Povera, Conceptual Art, performance, Transavanguardia, Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Geo and new photography, she acquired a reputation for her connoisseurship, her appetite for the new and for the international character of her gallery. Ileana Sonnabend died on 21/10/2007 in New York.
Info: Curator: Antonio Homem, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Rua D. João de Castro 210, Porto, Duration: 10/5-23/9/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-20:00, www.serralves.pt
