Why is art so important in our lives?
What would the world be like without art?
We don't have absolute, closed answers, but we do have clues, which make us want to move forward, which motivate us to continue in this quest to dignify and humanize the world through art. The relationship we establish with a work of art is not a typical relationship of knowledge, a mere accumulation of information about the materials used and the process of creation or explanations about the conditions and contexts in which the work is immersed.
These aspects are necessary and interesting, but they are never enough to access the truth of the work.
There must always be some distance between the work and the beholder, a distance that causes strangeness and disquiet, that can even make us uncomfortable, that forces us to uninstall ourselves, to question ourselves and the world around us.
A work of art moves us, and that's good, but we can't stop there. True access to a work requires time and reverence. As Walter Benjamin tells us, a work of art is like a beautiful person who has a secret that cannot be unveiled, only recognized. And it is this insurmountable mystery that makes them captivating and mobilizing.
Works of art are free, they have no owners. They belong neither to the artists who create them, nor to the collector who keeps them, nor even to those who contemplate them. Like Hannah Arendt, we believe that a work of art is a thing, but not just another thing among the other things in the world. A work of art is a unique thing that introduces novelty into the world. The sensations grasped by thought are materialized and transfigured into beauty through the hand of man. The work is born through the hands of the artist and is reborn every time it is contemplated. A work that is not contemplated dies, it ceases to be part of the world.
This brings us to what made us create this collection. Works of art need to be seen, shared, disseminated and discussed if they are to become part of the world. A more humane and dignified world, because it is beautiful. This is our mission and the legacy we want to leave our son Vasco.
