Our Artistic Director Marco Crispano interviewed Andrea Vittoria Giovannini for the Prisma Art Prize. In the conversation she reflects on what it means to be an “art activist” today, the collector’s role as a long-term ally to artists, and the fine line between communication that supports a practice and communication that turns it into a brand. She also shares her perspective on emerging artists, community-building, and what it means to judge work within an award context.
Andrea Vittoria Giovannini works across contemporary art, communication, and cultural projects, and is the founder of The Art Society, a platform conceived as a community that creates encounters around art in both traditional and non-traditional spaces.
M.: If you had to define your role in the art system today in one sentence, what would that sentence be?
A.: Art activist. Being an art activist means trying to be honest in the way one navigates the art ecosystem: seeking truth and authenticity. Recognizing that a work, a path, a research is necessary because this artist, this group of artists, must tell us their truth and make it relevant, because they truly live it, not only because it’s fashionable or convenient.
M.: And in this context, what is the role of the collector today, in your view?
A.: There are as many roles of collecting as there are collectors. I like to think that artists, collectors, and gallerists should all be the same age, to have the same dreams and the same hunger to grow together. That’s why I work with living artists, ideally under 40—emerging artists who are not represented or who are at their first exhibitions: the attitude should be one of growing together with the artists you choose to take a path with.
M.: So a collector who takes responsibility for their choices?
A.: Yes. For me, acquiring a work is not a commodity. The greatest function is to be able to create a bouquet of works that tells a story: the story of the person who collected them. It means artists must be known well. Showing interest in artists and standing by them makes a difference even regardless of acquisition. The point is not to find art: it is to find stories told authentically by people who have no alternative but to be artists.
M.: You worked between London and Milan in the design world: what should art never learn from the luxury market?
A.: Luxury is an overused, violated word. For some collectors, acquisition is a distinctive element to elevate themselves socially, but there is also an audience that does research in the primary market and fuels the history of contemporary art. Buying great masters only revives the power of the market and raises the prices of those who are already superstars.
M.: Let’s talk about communication: in your view, when does communication truly help art, and when does it damage it?
A.: It’s an equation with many factors. There are artists who give in to communication, becoming brands because there is a lack of real content: the research is often weak or strongly derivative. Sometimes it is the market that wants to turn an artist into a brand because it becomes attached to that aesthetic. I like artists who can surprise me, who have discontinuity: they change medium, subjects, themes. I like when someone throws me off and pulls me out of a comfort zone: otherwise I think neither I nor the artist is evolving—we’re just pampering ourselves.
M.: In an emerging artist, what attracts you first: coherence, risk, vision?
A.: The conviction that their story is relevant. I’m interested in honesty with one’s own feeling. They must have talent, an idea, a technique. I like when a young artist shows not the perfection of the work, but the strength and the intention to be in the world with something strong to say. This singular message can become universal, understandable to everyone on different levels.
M.: In your idea of an artistic community, what is missing today between artist, collector, galleries, public?
A.: A shared vision is missing. A strong deconstruction of one’s own status and pedestals is missing: being more generous, more open, more ready to share and to be together, not only for business interests.
M.: I’d like to talk about The Art Society: can you describe the project and what kind of experience you want to build?
A.: I imagine The Art Society as a group that, by choice, selects itself and recognizes itself, attracted by the creation of beauty and by moments in which people can meet and share experiences. We bring contemporary art into places not designed to host an exhibition: a club, a restaurant, a hotel foyer. Likewise, an independent fanzine where writing and the visual eye meet and create something free.
M.: What does it mean for you to judge within an award?
A.: It’s an opportunity to get to know many artists I didn’t know. From a portfolio you can never get the total vision of the work, but it does reveal the current taste of those who apply. I look at the award with great respect for the artists’ work and with great curiosity, and I hope it is awarded to the most deserving person and that, through this award, they receive a dose of confidence to move forward and do even more.
