5 minute read
DRIVING FORCES
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Driving Forces is a celebration of the first year of the Pizzuti Collection building and programming joining forces with CMA. The first exhibition to span both CMA locations, it is also the largest exhibition of work ever shown from the Pizzutis’ private collection. Below is an excerpt from the catalogue of the same name that accompanies the exhibition. It was written by Tyler Cann, CMA head of exhibitions and Pizzuti family curator of contemporary art, and Rebecaa Ibel, curator.
It is important to highlight, first of all, the plural nature of the exhibition title: Driving Forces. At any moment in the ecosystem of contemporary art, there are many dynamic forces at work helping to shape the cultural conversation and the direction of art history. Primary among these, of course, are the artists themselves. We humans are much richer for having individuals among us with the creative energy and drive to put something meaningful in the world. Participating in the cultural conversation as an artist requires courage and conviction. The artists in this exhibition are the prime movers.
But there is no art without an audience. The address to a public of some kind, even an imaginary one, is built into the practice of making art. Artists are continuously in dialogue with their forebears, peers, community, and world at large. This audience is a central part of the artistic equation, it is where meaning and momentum are generated. An expansive notion of the audience would also encompass the entire cultural and institutional apparatus that surrounds any particular work. This includes museums, galleries, academic departments, publishers, as well as the curators, dealers, historians, critics, and artists that populate them. You, dear reader, are part of a community for whom art helps form a clearer picture of the world. Whether you look to art to challenge your assumptions and probe your own thoughts, or to simply give you a certain kind of pleasure, you are also one of the forces indicated by our title.
And certainly, a critical part of the audience—the one that sustains artists and their work in very real ways—is the collector. To live with art is to be in dialogue with the emotions, memories, and histories they carry on a daily basis. Art works do not merely fill a room, they populate it with their presence, and it can be extremely rewarding to be surrounded by things that speak to a creative idea. Many collectors describe the acquisitive urge and the everyday thrill of living with art as strangely addictive. In their own ways, Ann and Ron Pizzuti have happily submitted to this gratifying affliction for over forty years.
As recounted more than once in these pages, Ann and Ron Pizzuti acquired their first work of art, a print called Regards Singuliers by Karel Appel, in 1972. It was a stroke of good fortune for Columbus that the little gallery they acquired it from on East Broad Street happened to be an early outpost of Pace Gallery, run by the indomitable Eva Glimcher. Pace would go on to become one of the largest and most important international art galleries, and Eva Glimcher was determined to get ambitious contemporary art into the Columbus community. The Pizzutis gladly joined this undertaking, and Regards Singuliers became the touchstone for a renowned collection of global contemporary art.
The collection of Ann and Ron Pizzuti does not follow any rules with respect to geography, size, medium, or style. It takes a broad sweep of contemporary artistic practices. However, strong relationships with artists, sometimes over decades, are also an important feature of the collection. It was Frank Stella that first caught Ron’s eye, and the Pizzutis have followed his career through most all of its stylistic twists and turns. This longstanding relationship is, quite literally, the starting point for Driving Forces; at both venues for the exhibition, the first work one encounters in the galleries is by Stella. And with the eight pieces by the artist in the show, one could chart a significant portion of his career. The shaped canvas Sketch Red Lead (1964), the concentric squares of Minor Drag (1967), and the monumental Polish village series Targowica III (1973) map the development of Stella’s painting, and with it, an important facet of geometric abstraction in this period. The two lithographs from the late 1960s and Pergusa Three (1992) offer a glimpse at Stella’s printmaking, while Knutange (1992), and the intensely contorted De Roos (2012) show the restless dynamism of his sculptural work. The development of Driving Forces even occasioned a visit to Stella in the immense former airplane hangar that serves as his studio.
Among the other artists whose work the Pizzutis have collected in depth are Tomory Dodge, Ori Gersht, Jim Hodges, and Alec Soth, to name a few. As the Pizzutis grew as collectors, they began to acquire work by a diverse set of younger artists from New York, around the country, and internationally. Reflecting the global character of the collection, as well as the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of contemporary art itself, there are over seventy-five artists from twenty-four countries included in Driving Forces. The oldest, Sonia Delaunay, was born in France in 1885, while the youngest, Toyin Ojih Odutula, was born in Nigeria a century later, in 1985. Cuba, China, and India represent particular geographical strengths of the collection, but artists from Brazil, Jamaica, South Africa, Kenya, and many other corners of the globe are also here.
This openness to younger artists from all over the world is one of the most remarkable features of the Pizzuti collection, making Driving Forces an intergenerational and international slice of work from the last half century. Sonia Delaunay’s whirling abstraction is in conversation with that of Carrie Moyer. Lee Ufan, who was born in South Korea and works in Japan, sits alongside work by Ai Weiwei, from China, and Bharti Kher, from India, as well as American artists Nick Cave and Jim Hodges. Many of the artists who came to prominence in the twenty-first century, such as Titus Kaphar, Kara Walker, and Kehinde Wiley, are engaged very directly in the process of reevaluating history, and reappraising the stories of those who have often been marginalized in its telling.
Following artist’s careers, supporting their work, and becoming part of the conversation in the process, the Pizzutis know well that when a group of objects becomes a collection, it takes on a life of its own. With service to the art and the community that surrounds it, Driving Forces shows that a collection, particularly one so connected to what is happening at any given moment, can become a cultural force in its own right.
