Art Basel in Basel&nbsp;2024, June 12

The artist and the collector

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Paulina Olowska

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Paulina Olowska, Artist, Rabka Zdroj and Krakow Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin Moderator: Coline Milliard, Executive Editor, Art Basel
The relationship between artists and patrons is a fundamental driving force in the art world. At its best, it sparks extraordinary projects and fosters the creation of new forms of knowledge. In this series, we ask a prominent collector to choose one artist with whom to unpack this complex dynamic. Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, a powerhouse in the global art scene, has collaborated with countless artists throughout her impressive three-decade career in philanthropy. She asked to be in conversation with Polish artist Paulina Olowska, whose multifarious practice – encompassing painting, photography, video, and performance – was the object of a major solo show at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin earlier this year. Together, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Olowska will discuss the outcomes and insights gained from their collaboration, examining their experiences through the prism of their respective philanthropic and artistic practices – among the most forward-thinking in Europe today.
Paulina Olowska (b. 1976, Gdansk, Poland) was born in 1976 in Gdansk, Poland, and lives and works in Rabka Zdroj and Krakow, Poland. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois in 1996 and earned an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, Gdansk, Poland in 2000. She has held solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Basel; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2013); Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2014); Kistefos Museum, Jevnaker, Norway (2022); and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2023). Group exhibition including her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2009); New Museum for Contemporary Art, New York (2011); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2017); Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna (2018); Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021); and Tate Modern, London (2023). Currently, Olowska is participating the the travelling exhibition, Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, which is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (2023–2024), and will travel to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2024) and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2024–2025). 
Olowska received the prestigious Aachen Art Prize in 2014, with an associated exhibition at the Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, Germany. She has staged performances at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2013); Tate Modern, London (2015); the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (2023); and The Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2023). Olowska presented the ballet “Slavic Goddesses—A Wreath of Ceremonies” at the Kitchen, New York, in 2017 and "Slavic Goddesses and The Ushers” at the Museo del Novecento in Milan in 2018. Her work was featured in the 2017 National Gallery of Victoria Triennial in Melbourne and the 2018 Liverpool Biennial. Her work is held in major public institutions worldwide, including Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Städtiches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others.&nbsp;
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is founder and president of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. After graduating in economy and business from the University of Turin, she approached the world of contemporary art, as a collector, in the early 1990s. She turned her passion for art into an organized activity in 1995, when she gave life to the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo based first in Guarene (1997) and then also in Turin (2002). In 2017, she established the Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid. 
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is a member of the international councils of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City and the Tate, London; the leadership council of the New Museum, New York City, the committee for Modern and contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the boards of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York; and is a patron of the Fundació MACBA, Barcelona. 
In Italy, she holds prominent roles including as a member of the Cultural Committee of the General Confederation of Italian Industry; president of the Comitato Fondazioni Arte Contemporanea; and president of Fondazione IEO-Monzino (The European Institute of Oncology and Monzino Cadriological Centre). In 2023, she was appointed president of the Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. 
She has been awarded honorary titles including ‘Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana’ (2023) and ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’, conferred by the French Republic (2009). She has also been awarded the Montblanc Arts Patronage Award (2003); the AIDDA Award (2003); the Marisa Bellisario Award (2005); recognized as a ‘Cultore dell’Architettura’ by the Consiglio dell’Ordine degli Architetti di Torino (2007), and bestowed with the title of ‘Accademico d’Onore’ by the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino (2016). In 2019, she received the Leo Award from Independent Curators International in New York City, and in 2020, was appointed ‘Ambasciatrice nel mondo delle eccellenze torinesi.’ In 2021, she was recognized as the ‘Torinese dell’anno’ by the Turin Chamber of Commerce, and in 2022, she received the Renaissance Award in Florence. In 2023, she was honored with the International Patronage Award in Madrid for her commitment as a collector in support of art and patronage. Since 2014, she has curated the column ‘Viaggi d’arte’ for How to Spend It – Italia. Since 2015, she has taught theories and forms of the art market at IULM, Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione in Milan.&nbsp; The Art Basel 2024 Conversations program is curated by Kimberly Bradley.

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