Works of Art

The contemporary art collection of the Studio Notarile Ciro de Vivo comprises some sixty works, almost all produced within the new millennium and drawn from every corner of the globe: from China to Africa, from the United States to South America, from Russia across the whole of Europe, pausing also, and lingering, within Italy itself.

The new arrangement constitutes a veritable exhibition itinerary, winding through the offices distributed across the three floors of this eighteenth-century building in the heart of Milan. From the meeting rooms overlooking the internal garden, through the offices, and onward to the archives, the selection and placement of the works has been conceived as a narrative that accompanies and underscores the significance of each setting.

A cat wearing a knowing smile peers out amid the rooftops of Michael Wolf's Paris, greeting the newcomer from behind the receptionist's shoulder. This is one of the few, yet significant, photographic works within the collection, and here it shares its space with a painting by the Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou (indeed, that very Tayou whom readers may well have encountered at one of the Venice Biennales in which he has participated, or at Documenta in Kassel).

Here, the work unfolds across a collage of documents: pages from school exercise books upon which the artist has drawn. It is an allusion to the right to education and to the history of Cameroon, as well as an expression of the wonderful simplicity characteristic of Tayou's style.

In the waiting room, two figures drawn by Nicola Villa appear suspended, seemingly even above the canvas itself. On the opposite wall, the grey-toned prints of Mark Steinmetz likewise depict scenes seemingly outside of time: a young woman, her head bowed, appears to entrust herself, with quiet confidence, to the waiting.

The principal execution room is the "Room of the Law," presided over by Joe Camel — the pop icon created by the Chinese artist Zhou Tiehai — here disguised as Napoleon upon the day of his coronation. Around him hang further works addressing measure and justice, such as the beautiful Vitruvian Man by Tom Sachs, offered in critique of Le Corbusier and of an ideal of equity that is, in truth, merely apparent.

And so it continues, room by room, office by office. The arrangement, curated by Giulia Zorzi for Micamera, seeks also to take account of the relationship that those employed within the Firm have, over the years, developed with the works themselves. For art lives within its relationship with the observer.

The collection was begun by Notary Enrico Lainati, who acquired the greater part of the works now present, choosing each piece individually, ever following his instinct, frequently supporting artists little known at the time of acquisition, and almost invariably foreseeing their future success.

As Jean Renoir, son of the Impressionist painter, once observed: Art is not a trade; it is the manner in which one practises a trade.

A notary, then, may likewise prove something of an artist.

Giulia Zorzi — micamera.com