Lucio Amelio

Lucio Amelio (born September 13, 1931 in Naples ; † July 2, 1994 there ) was a leading Italian art dealer and gallery owner of contemporary art. In 1980, with the Terrae Motus collection, he laid the foundation for his own representative museum of contemporary art in Naples, a collection that was born under the impact of the catastrophe of the November 23, 1980 earthquake .
Live and act
Early years
Lucio Amelio was born on September 13, 1931 on Via dei Tribunali in Naples. He had four sisters - Marisa († 1981), Giuliana, Lina and Anna. Due to the Second World War , the family moved several times and from 1944 settled in Resina for twelve years . After graduating from the Liceo scientifico in 1949 and studying engineering for two years , Amelio enrolled for a degree in architecture at the University of Naples . Since 1950 he was interested in modern art and attended the Quadriennale in Rome. There he got to know the works of Alberto Burri , who later became a documenta artist, and the painting of Armando De Stefano. In 1951 he became a board member of "Corda Fratres" (Federazione Internationale degli Studenti; Sezione Italiana), a cultural student association at the University of Naples that organized foreign trips for students. A year later, Lucio Amelio showed his first and only painting during an exhibition, a sooty tile with a naive landscape. In 1953 he joined the Communist Party of Italy and attended the lectures of the Italian philosopher Gerardo Marotta .
First artist acquaintances
In 1954 Amelio accompanied his father on a business trip to Germany and, impressed by this country, moved a short time later to West Berlin , where TUSMA , a student employment agency at the Technical University of Berlin , arranged for him to do temporary work. Here he met the painter, graphic artist and later gallery owner Günter Wirth , who introduced him to friends in East Berlin , including the poet and screenwriter Jens Gerlach , the composer and national prize winner Andre Asriel and the opera director Friedrich Petzold (1928–1990 ). He then worked for a long time in the design office of the architect Hermann Henselmann , who built Stalin-Allee . When his father died in 1958, he returned to Naples the same year and started working as a German interpreter at Cantieri Metallurgici Italiani, Bagnoli . At the same time he wrote job applications and looked for a job in Germany through the advertisements in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . In the following year, Amelio moved to Stuttgart and became an assistant to an export company for construction chemicals , which in 1963 appointed him General Manager of its Spanish branch, after which he moved to Barcelona . During a trip to the Pico Tibidabo in June of the same year, Amelio fell into a five meter deep construction hole. The fall tied him to bed for six months - a time that he later described as a "year of death and resurrection" and during which the desire to devote himself entirely to art had matured.
Gallery foundation
In 1964 Amelio first moved into rooms in Via Michelangelo Schipa, then on Via del Parco Margherita 85. There, on Vomero , he founded the Modern Art Agency in his apartment in 1965 , in which he presented the Berlin Heiner Dilly as one of the first exhibitions . Dilly designed graphics and gouaches in the form of lettering paintings that could be read as travel notes. Although the exhibition did not have a classic opening due to a lack of funds , it did have some success as it attracted the attention of art critic Filiberto Menna, who became one of the gallery's first clients. During the following seven exhibitions in 1966, the gallery owner Lucio Amelio showed the first solo exhibition of the artist Carlo Alfano , born in Naples in 1932, on June 1st , which established a lifelong friendship and collaboration between Amelio and Alfano. During this time he also got to know Renato Guttuso and Max Ernst .
In the summer of 1969 Amelio moved into larger rooms on the second floor at 58 Piazza dei Martiri in Naples, which he opened in December with an exhibition by Jannis Kounellis entitled Il viaggio . A total of twelve exhibitions followed from 1970, including one by Michelangelo Pistoletto , Stanley Brouwn and the Dutch conceptual artist Marinus Boezem , who exhibited in the gallery on March 25, 1970. In 1971 Amelio was appointed commercial agent for the Italian trade fair exhibitors, the Comitato dell'Ente Fiera, a position he retained throughout his life. In the same year he traveled to New York and San Francisco and exhibited four portraits of Andy Warhol's Jackie in February .
In 1975, Lucio Amelio celebrated the first ten years of his gallery activity, in which he had most recently shown Cy Twombly , Gilbert & George and Jannis Kounellis , with a series of exhibitions, including a group exhibition at Villa Volpicelli in Posillipo . He renamed his gallery the Galleria Lucio Amelio . From 1970, Lucio Amelio took part in the Cologne art market as well as the art fairs in Düsseldorf and Berlin, where he met Ileana Sonnabend in 1970 .
Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol
In September 1971, during a work conference initiated by Klaus Staeck , Erwin Heerich and Joseph Beuys in Heidelberg with the aim of developing a concept for the organization of an “international free art market”, Amelio got to know the German artist Joseph Beuys. In addition to the initiators, Mario Merz , Jannis Kounellis, Panamarenko and Germano Celant also took part in this conference . A lifelong friendship developed between Amelio and Beuys, whose work he exhibited several times in his gallery from this year onwards. Amelio's first Beuys exhibition, Ciclo sull'opera di Joseph Beuys 1946–1971 , opened on November 13, 1971; it showed 130 drawings and concepts from the respective years from the Lothar Schirmer collection . The poster designed by the artist for the exhibition used a photo taken by Giancarlo Pancaldi in October 1971, showing Beuys in front of the entrance to the Villa Orlandi on Anacapri , in front of whom he was in the pose of the central male figure in the middle of the painting The Fourth Stand by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo - marching towards the viewer with a determined expression - had his picture taken. Beuys had a sentence coined in 1970 added to the photo: La rivoluzione siamo Noi (We are the revolution) . Arena followed in 1972 - Dove sarei arrivato se fossi stato intelligent! , a large-format work with 100 panels, in which Beuys put 264 photo documents of his autobiographical impact in 100 aluminum frames and arranged them in the gallery in the form of an arena. Since Amelios Modern Art Agency did not have enough wall space, Beuys completely dispensed with the hanging and instead set up the frames next to one another at irregular intervals.
With a first exhibition on Mario Merz on November 20, 1976, Amelio organized his first series of exhibitions outside the gallery and between 1977 and 1978 showed the artists Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jannis Kounellis, Pier Paolo Calzolari , Giulio Paolini , Beuys with Tracce in the Villa Pignatelli in Naples in Italia and Carlo Alfano. In October 1980, Lucio Amelio produced in collaboration with RAI di Napoli for Rai 3 the program In mano al l'arte , broadcast in four episodes, directed by Fernando Belestra.
After Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol first met in May 1979 at the Hans Mayer Gallery in Düsseldorf, the two artists met again in Naples in 1980. The occasion was the exhibition Joseph Beuys by Andy Warhol on April 1, 1980 in Amelio's gallery, with nine silkscreen portraits that Warhol had made of Beuys after a meeting in New York from Polaroid photographs. In honor of the two artists, Amelio arranged a gathering in the Sibylle Grotto of Cumae and in the City Hall Café on Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Naples at a festival at which the actor, director and singer Leopoldo Mastelloni performed as a travesty artist.
"Terrae Motus" collection
After the severe earthquake in Naples in November 1980, in which 2,914 people died and 8,850 were injured, Amelio organized a series of exhibitions entitled Terrae Motus , with works by more than 50 international artists on the theme of earthquakes. The gallery owner Lucio Amelio used his worldwide connections and “offered the devastated Naples to the art scene as a metaphor, as a theme and motif of an end times and optimistic mood.”
The artists
It all started on April 17, 1981, with Joseph Beuys in the gallery with Terremoto in Palazzo , 1981, a composition of four wooden tables that were unbalanced, broken glass on the floor and a raw egg placed upright on one of the tables. A year later, on December 4, 1982, Andy Warhol showed Fate presto , three large-scale reproductions of the first page of the Neapolitan daily Il Mattino of November 26, 1980 with the report on the earthquake.
Among the other artists who spontaneously made work available were Siegfried Anzinger with earthquake , 1982; Miquel Barceló with L'ombra che tema , 1983; James Brown with Neapolitan tryptich , 1983; Tony Cragg with Senza titolo , 1983; Enzo Cucchi with Senza titolo , 1986; Luciano Fabro with Italia Porta , 1986; Gilbert & George with Dying Youth , 1980; Keith Haring with Senza titolo , 1983; Richard Long with Vesuvius circle , 1984; Nino Longobardi with Senza titolo , 1983; Robert Mapplethorpe with the photo series Dennis Speight with thorns , Jack with crown , Scull with crossbones , Jill Chapmann , Dennis Speight with flowers ; Oswald Oberhuber with Senzo titolo , 1983; Mimmo Paladino with Re uccisi al decadere della forza , 1981; Giulio Paolini with L'altra figura , 1986; Michelangelo Pistoletto with Annunciazione Terrae Motus , 1962/84; Gerhard Richter with Statisch , 1982; Emilio Vedova with … So whether… '84 −1 , 1984 and Bill Woodrow with Fruit of the city , 1984.
Fondazione Amelio
In November 1982, Lucio Amelio, together with his sisters Giuliana, Lina and Anna, set up a foundation, the Fondazione Amelio , an institute for contemporary art which, among other things, should serve the purpose of “building up an art collection [...], that of the city of Naples to promote the development of the city's emerging artistic figures [and] ventures in the field of contemporary and performing arts. ” Amelio appointed Italian art historian Giulio Carlo Argan to head the art history committee of his foundation.
The basis of the Terrae Motus collection for its own representative museum of contemporary art in Naples, initially consisting of ten works, was shown for the first time in September 1983 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston . In 1984 and 1986, the collection, which was expanded to include additional works of art, was opened to the public in the Villa Campolieto, a palace built and restored in the 16th century by Luigi Vanvitelli in the Herculaneum destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 , and in the Grand Palais in Paris in early 1987 presented. Due to the great success of the exhibition, it was shown in many foreign museums, including the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin, the Royal Academy in London , the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, as well as in Tokyo and New York.
The whereabouts of the collection
In order to find a permanent home for his Terrae Motus collection in his hometown of Naples, Lucio Amelio acquired the north wing of the Capuchin monastery of Santa Lucia Vergine al Monte in Corso Vittorio Emanuele near the fortress of Sant'Elmo in 1990 with part of the assets of his foundation established in 1982 . In addition, the acquisition of the monastery was intended to enable encounters between young artists and various art initiatives. The collection has been on permanent display in the Palace of Caserta since November 1992 .
Museo di Capodimonte

In mid-July 1985 the exhibition Vesuvius by Warhol , organized by Lucio Amelio, opened in the Museo di Capodimonte . It showed eighteen paintings on canvas by the pop art artist Warhol with an identical theme, but in different colors and formats. The motif of Vesuvius in eruption was inspired by the postcard Eruzione al 1913 by an unknown painter and photographs by Giorgio Sommer of the eruption of April 26, 1872, 3 p.m. On the same occasion, Warhol produced a screen print edition of Vesuvius (Wkvz. Schellmann No. II.365) in an edition of 250 copies, the proceeds of which went to Amelio's projects. Amelio donated the largest format (230 × 300 cm, inv. Q 1794) from the Vesuvius series of paintings to the museum in the year of his death.
As a result of the twenty-year existence of his gallery, Lucio Amelio presented on December 6, 1985 under the title Venti anni one hundred works by fifty artists, including Warhol, Beuys, Man Ray and Ernesto Tatafiore. From December 23, the exhibition of the installation Palazzo Regale by Joseph Beuys followed, also in the Museo di Capodimonte, a work that is regarded in the art world as a kind of testament of the artist. The designs were created in Amelio's Villa Quattro Venti in September 1985 on Capri , where Beuys had created the prototype of the Capri battery .
Last years
On February 27, 1987 Lucio Amelio first showed works by Alighiero Boetti and organized, three months later, in early June 1987 in cooperation with Eva Beuys, Jessyka Beuys and Wenzel Beuys, the art academy in Dusseldorf and Vienna Secession , at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli Die Soziale Plastik , the first retrospective of Joseph Beuys after his death in 1986.
With a selection of historical objects by ten international artists, Lucio Amelio opened the group exhibition Oggetto on March 25, 1988 . Were shown by Robert Rauschenberg Widow (Shiner) from 1987; by Jasper John's Flag from 1960; by Marcel Duchamp L.HOOQ from 1919 to 1964 and rotor reliefs from 1965; by Beuys Bruno Corà-Tee per la Lotta Continua Vera from 1975; by Marcel Broodthaers Le Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille from 1974; by Man Ray L'Enigme d'Isidore Ducasse , 1920–1972; by Piero Manzoni Merda d'artista , 1961; by Francis Picabia and René Clair Entr'Acte , 1924; by Andy Warhol Campell’s Tomato Soup from 1968. Kurt Schwitters was represented with six works, including Wie Mädchen haben , 1924–1926, and Chicken , 1947. In 1988 Amelio opened another gallery, Pièce Unique , in the Belgian Isy Brachot rue Jacques Callot 4 in Paris in the 6th arrondissement , a district popular with artists and traders. In the gallery, which existed until 1990, only one work, a unique piece, was shown in a single room. In French, pièce has a double meaning: piece and space.
In 1991 Amelio paid a double homage to his friend Joseph Beuys. As part of the Vent'anni con Beuys exhibition , at the end of October he exhibited works for the German artist that had been created in Naples. In December he showed Per Joseph Beuys , a group exhibition with multiples by thirty artists such as Sandro Chia , Enzo Cucchi , Jannis Kounellis , Sol LeWitt , Robert Mapplethorpe and Andy Warhol. On March 16, 1994, Amelio opened his last gallery exhibition with a homage to the American artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who died early.
On July 2, 1994, Lucio Amelio, HIV- positive since 1987, died of AIDS in his hometown of Naples at the age of 62 .
Grave on Capri
Lucio Amelio's grave is in the Cimitero Acattolico , the non-Catholic cemetery , on Capri , where many international writers and artists, such as the writer Norman Douglas and the French Baron Jacques Fersen - his house on Capri, the Villa Lysis , Amelio had wanted to restore in the last few years of his life - are buried. The gravestone, a large rectangular slab of black Belgian marble , was designed by Amelio himself with the help of art critic Michele Bonuomo a year before his death. In the middle of the marble slab, under the name "Lucio Amelio", a circle is engraved, the inside of which, when the sun is at its highest, releases an intense light through a mirror effect; Below is the inscription L'isola del sonno (Island of Sleep) , which quotes the title of a small object by Joseph Beuys that was created on Capri in the summer of 1974.
Actors and singers
Lucio Amelio occasionally appeared as a film actor in supporting roles, including in four films by the director Lina Wertmüller . In the film Pasqualino Settebellezze ( Seven Beauties ) from 1975 he played a lawyer, in La fine del mondo nel nostro solito letto in una notte piena di pioggia (In a rainy night) from 1978 the friend in Fatto di sangue fra due uomini per causa di una vedova, si sospettano moventi politici (Blood feud) from the same year the Dr. Chrisafulli, in Camorra , 1985, again the lawyer and in 1990 a role in Sabato, domenica e lunedi (Saturday, Sunday, Monday) . He also played the character of the Margrave in Mario Martone's 1992 film Morte di un matematico napoletano (Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician) .
He also enjoyed singing, loved the music of the 1950s and in 1990 had a record, produced by Pasquale Vairetti, engraved with the title Ma l'amore no (But not my love) , which he dedicated to Joseph Beuys. The case was designed by Cy Twombly and contains a portrait of Amelio, created by Robert Mapplethorpe .
reception
On September 30, 1993, almost exactly a year before Lucio Amelio's death, the documentary Lucio Amelio - Terrae Motus was premiered at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples, directed by Mario Martone . The film, in which Lucio Amelio, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Nino Longobardi, Mimmo Paladino and Ernesto Tatafiore also have their say, describes once again the course, the creation and also the background of the Amelios collection of the same name, which began in 1980.
The Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta, Milan, organized in cooperation with the Fondazione Lucio Amelio, Naples, from November 16, 2007 to March 30, 2008 a homage to Lucio Amelio (Omaggio a Lucio Amelio) . Amelio's longtime friend Michele Bonuomo, journalist and art critic, was the editor of the Warhol Beuys catalog with numerous illustrations for the exhibition . Omaggio a Lucio Amelio . In addition to Bonuomo's contributions, the catalog brings together texts by Roberto Ciuni, Francesco Durante, journalist with Corriere della Sera , an interview Partitura di Joseph Beuys: La Rivoluzione siamo Noi between Joseph Beuys and Achille Bonito Oliva , an essay by Beuys, Alcune richieste e domande sul Palazzo nella testa umana , as well as a smaller text by Bruno Corà. Furthermore, the history of Lucio Amelio's gallery can be recorded through the numerous works by Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys and other artists in the gallery as well as through the historical documentation. The catalog concludes with a biography of the gallery owner written by Lucio Amelio's long-time secretary Paola Santamaria.
Publications
Gallery publications
- 1965: Lucio Amelio: Heiner Dilly. Travel Stories , October 18, Modern Art Agency, Naples
- 1966: Lea Vergine: Diodato Pappa , February 9, Modern Art Agency, Naples
- 1966: Filiberto Menna, Aldo Loris Rossi: Carlo Alfano , June 1st, Modern Art Agency, Naples
- 1967: Achille Bonito Oliva: Wirth , January 1967, Modern Art Agency, Naples
- 1968: Filiberto Menna: Josef Albers . Un occhio per il colore , January 20th, Modern Art Agency, Naples
- 1978: Roland Barthes : Wilhelm von Gloeden . Interventi di Joseph Beuys , Michelangelo Pistoletto , Andy Warhol , Amelio Editore, Naples
- 1978: Giulio Carlo Argan: Alberto Burri , exhibition catalog, Museo di Capodimonte , Amelio Editore, Naples
- 1985: Michele Bonuomo, A. Tecce: Vesuvius by Warhol , January 1967, exhibition catalog, Naples
Newspaper articles
- 1980: Lucio Amelio: Rifare Piedigrotta? , Il Mattino, Naples, March 11th
- 1980: Lucio Amelio: Napoli, museo di mare con abitanti , Il Mattino, Naples, April 1st
- 1980: Lucio Amelio: Con un Picasso nella manica , Il Mattino, Naples, October 5th
- 1980: Primo Levi: Un amico per Andy , L'Europeo , Milan April 15th
literature
- Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Joseph Beuys. The social sculpture . Amelio Editore, Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli, Informatore d'Arte, No. 8, June 1987.
- Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Terrae Motus . Fondazione Amelio, Electa Napoli, Naples 1984.
- Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Warhol Beuys. Omaggio a Lucio Amelio . Mazzotta, Milan 2007, ISBN 978-88-202-1862-1 .
- Germano Celant: BEUYS. tracce in italia . amelio editore, Naples 1978.
- Frayda Feldman, Jörg Schellmann: Andy Warhol Prints. A catalog raisonné 1962–1987 . Edition Schellmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 1-891024-63-9
- Jan Wagner (Ed.): Terrae Motus alla Reggia di Caserta . Fondazione Amelio, Electa Napoli e Guido editori, Naples 1992.
Web links
- Lucio Amelio in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Gabi Czöppan: A life under the volcano , interview with Lucio Amelio, focus.de, February 14, 1994, accessed on March 18, 2011
- Galleria Lucio Amelio ( Memento of June 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at Rai - Radiotelevisione Italiana (Italian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mario Franco : Il Terrae Motus di Amelio l 'arte al centro dell' uomo , La Repubblica , July 22, 2004, ricerca.repubblica.it, accessed on August 10, 2012
- ↑ a b c d e Paola Santamaria: Lucio Amelio 1931–1949 . In: Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Warhol Beuys. Omaggio a Lucio Amelio . Mazzotta, Milan 2007, p. 207
- ↑ Carlo Alfano on michelacattai.it, accessed on July 1, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Paola Santamaria: Lucio Amelio 1931-1949 . In: Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Warhol Beuys. Omaggio a Lucio Amelio , p. 207 ff.
- ↑ a b c Paola Santamaria, in: Michele Bonuomo (Ed.), P. 210
- ↑ a b c d e f Paola Santamaria, in: Michele Bonuomo (Ed.), P. 211
- ↑ Götz Adriani, Winfried Konnertz , Karin Thomas: Joseph Beuys . DuMont, Cologne 1994, p. 123
- ^ Lynne Cooke, Karen Kelly: Joseph Beuys. Arena - where would I have gone if I had been intelligent! . Dia Center for the Arts, Cantz Verlag, New York, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-89322-620-6 , p. 13 (German edition)
- ^ Art yesterday and today. The heirs of the Neapolitan School of Painting . In: Eva Gründel, Heinz Tomek: Travel correctly. Naples. Coasts and islands . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7701-2289-5 , p. 229
- ↑ Jan Wagner (Ed.): Terrae Motus alla Reggia di Caserta . Fondazione Amelio, Electa Napoli e Guido editori, Naples 1992
- ↑ a b c d e f g Paola Santamaria, in: Michele Bonuomo (ed.), P. 214
- ^ Pietro Accardo / Gianluigi Santoro: Chiesa di Santa Lucia al Monte di Napoli , storiacity.com, accessed on August 8, 2012
- ↑ Collezione Terrae Motus , 1961–2011 - 50 anni d'arte nella Reggia di Caserta , modalitademode.com, accessed on July 7, 2012
- ^ Andy Warhol Archives: Idea Box 21
- ↑ Andy Warhol Archives No. 2001.2.2242
- ^ Victoria C. Gardner Coates et al: The Last Days of Pompeii. Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection , Getty Publications, Los Angeles 2012, ISBN 978-1-60606-115-2 , p. 176
- ↑ Quoted from Gabi Czöppan's interview: Life under the volcano
- ↑ Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Oggetto: Beuys, Broodthaers, Duchamp, Johns, Manzoni, Man Ray, Rauschenberg, Schwitters, Twombly, Warhol . Napoli e Dintorni, no.10, March 1988, Lucio Amelio Napoli
- ↑ Joseph Beuys: Insel des Schlafes . Soap in a whitewashed wooden box, 10 × 6 cm (private collection)
- ↑ Francesco Durante: Amelio , www.caprireview.it, accessed June 12, 2011
- ↑ Paola Santamaria, in: Michele Bonuomo (Ed.), P. 96
- ↑ Camorra. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved May 13, 2019 .
- ↑ Lucio Amelio , www.imdb.de, accessed on March 25, 2011
- ^ Francesco Durante: Napoli e dintorni . In: Michele Bonuomo (ed.): Warhol Beuys. Omaggio a Lucio Amelio , p. 49
- ↑ Pasquale Vairetti: Quarant'anni di musica nella mia città distratta , ivoltidinapoli-napoli.blogautore.repubblica.it, accessed on March 18, 2011
- ↑ Lucio Amelio. Ma l'amore no , musik-sammler.de, accessed on March 18, 2011
- ↑ Lucio Amelio - Terrae Motus , torinofilmfest.org, accessed on September 13, 2012
- ↑ Omaggio a Lucio Amelio , cultframe.com, accessed August 4, 2012
Illustrations
- ^ Joseph Beuys: La rivoluzione siamo Noi , 1971
- ↑ Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys and Lucio Amelio during a press conference in Naples on April 1, 1980, Photo: Antonio Troncone (accessed April 8, 2018)
- ↑ Lucio Amelio and John Gilette in front of one of the reproductions of the triptych Fate Presto , 1981 by Andy Warhol
- ^ Andy Warhol: Vesuvius , 1985
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Amelio, Lucio |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian collector and art dealer |
DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1931 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Naples |
DATE OF DEATH | 2nd July 1994 |
Place of death | Naples |