<div><p>This French gallerist convinced Lawrence Weiner and&nbsp;Richard Serra to exhibit in rural Burgundy. What's his secret?</p></div><p><strong></strong></p>

Sarah Moroz

Pietro Spartà's unusual pitch

<p><strong></strong></p><p><a href="https://parisplus.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2906/Galerie-Pietro-Spart%C3%A0">Galerie Pietro Spartà</a> is an intriguing outlier. It is located in a rural area of France, in Burgundy, surrounded by vineyards and bisected by the Canal du Centre, some two hours outside Paris. Moreover, the space is ‘symbolically’ off the map in that it has no online presence whatsoever. And yet, its eponymous founder needs none of the usual trappings to attract artists and collectors alike. Pietro Spartà is willfully experimental, and knows the value of his own choices, predicated on intuition, passion, and community.</p>

<p><strong></strong></p><p>Spartà grew up in a working-class environment in Chagny, but he found that the typical professions of the area he grew up in – agriculture, factory work – didn’t suit him. ‘I wanted something to change – radically so. I loved my family, but I didn’t want to be like them,’ he says. Yet he didn’t want to leave either. The gallerist's hometown is devoid of a cultural scene – as he freely admits – except for a Michelin-starred restaurant. As an autodidact, he discovered art by way of books, developing a particular interest in <strong>Piet Mondrian</strong> and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7524/Kazimir-Malevich">Kazimir Malevich</a>. He learned about Arte Povera, Minimalism, and conceptual artists, and wished to encounter the artists whose work he marveled at in publications: ‘absolutely as soon as I possibly could, before they died,’ he said, laughing at his own sense of urgency. But his tenacity was genuine. ‘I wanted to know what they did, how they lived – what it was like to be an artist.’</p>

<p>A friend loaned him an ‘art diary,’ a compendium of artists’ contact details. Spartà telephoned each artist he wished to meet, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7807/Mario-Merz">Mario Merz</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8593/Gilberto-Zorio">Gilberto Zorio</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8113/Niele-Toroni">Niele Toroni</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6914/Daniel-Buren">Daniel Buren</a>. They each responded to his enthusiasm and invited him to visit their respective studios. ‘I didn't quite know what to say to them, except that I liked what they did,’ Spartà admits. He was neither a gallerist nor a collector. Working as a metallurgist at the time, he frequented Paris galleries every weekend – notably Yvon Lambert, Galerie Liliane et Michel Durand-Dessert, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1186/Galerie-Lelong-Co">Lelong &amp; Co</a>.</p><p>The artists he reached out to assured him they would provide work for him if he created a dedicated space. Spartà followed through and found a venue in Chagny. Then, he jokes, ‘I did what Paris gallerists did: I repainted it entirely in white.’ Within a year, in July 1982, he hosted his first exhibition: a group show called ‘Le Poids des Mots, Le Choc des Photos’, bringing together a prestigious ensemble including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6864/Annette-Messager">Annette Messager</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8226/Hans-Peter-Feldmann">Hans-Peter Feldmann</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10137/On-Kawara">On Kawara</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6942/Jenny-Holzer">Jenny Holzer</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8588/Joseph-Kosuth">Joseph Kosuth</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7373/Richard-Prince">Richard Prince</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7037/Sophie-Calle">Sophie Calle</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6907/Barbara-Kruger">Barbara Kruger</a>, who attended the opening, brought posters with her, and put them up in the streets of Chagny.</p>

<p>After this impressive debut, Spartà continued to operate in his own, nonconformist way. He hadn't yet mastered how to sell work, or how to draw in collectors. Embracing his distance from the market, he asked artists to create pieces that were ‘unsellable.’ ‘It was a way to make them really go to work, and they loved the idea of creating complicated art.’ His singular take cemented a community, with artists bringing other like-minded creatives to his attention to support his impassioned and wholly independent efforts. The small scale of Chagny (around 6000 inhabitants) inversely fed the lofty scale of Spartà’s ambition. Everything felt possible because there was such a large margin for experimentation, and no pressure to fit into the market. The mark of a great artist, according to Spartà, is ‘not just communicated through form – their approach to the world is a determinant too.’ He was interested in artists who already had something important to say, and boldly announced their creative capacity and open-mindedness.</p>

<p>To date, Spartà’s strategy for navigating the art scene is unchanged – his methods work for him. The macrocosm of the art world has evolved explosively around him, and while he’s impressed by these global evolutions, he has – if anything – doubled down on his commitment to a very personal mode of operating. The internet bulldozed everything that came before – the number of collectors, the sense of territory – ‘like a big bang.’ Spartà has no professional website or social media, yet he finds that information about what he does ‘circulates anyway – it’s pretty miraculous.’ He has reduced the number of fairs he attends, but draws an international crowd of collectors to him regardless. He recalls how art aficionados all used to attend each other’s openings, instead of competing to get crowds to their own.</p><p>The turnover of exhibitions hosted at his gallery is ‘very variable – a function of the artist’s works and own program.’ Some exhibitions last up to six months; given this, there are usually between two and four shows per year. He has a ‘small’ space of 130m2, and a larger neighboring one of 800m2, with a glass roof. The gallery’s most recent exhibition featured work by Thomas Schütte – notably a custom-constructed wooden edifice. This hexagonal ‘<em>maison-sculpture’ </em>was dubbed the ‘Spartà Hut,’and Spartà himself followed its fabrication step-by-step. The next exhibition will be in November: a site-specific installation by Zorio, alongside several existing pieces.</p>

<p>Zorio will also create a public work, which is something several artists under Spartà’s purview have been doing in collaboration with the town of Chagny and the French Ministry of Culture. There was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6778/Lawrence-Weiner">Lawrence Weiner</a>’s concrete and metal work <em style="background-color: initial;">Et sous les étoiles</em> (1994), Schütte’s bronze fountain <em>Weinende Frau</em><span style="background-color: initial;"> (2009/2017), and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7516/Richard-Serra">Richard Serra</a>’s Cor-Ten steel <em>Octagon for Saint Eloi</em> (1991). For the latter, residents were excited to inaugurate the commission, but when Serra’s 57-ton work was set down on the Place de l’Église, the locals thought it was merely the pedestal for the forthcoming statue, not the actual work. Spartà, chuckling at the memory, describes this scenario as having ‘a Jacques Tati quality’ – a humorous misunderstanding akin to the ones that play out in the French director’s mischievous films. Having one foot in a working-class backdrop and one foot in the art world allows ‘one to reinforce the other.’ Spartà relishes ‘the excitement of working with a great artist, and then going to the local bistro and speaking with people who have nothing to do with this context.’</span></p>

<p>
	As for what he will show at Paris+ par Art Basel, Spartà hadn't yet decided, as of late summer. ‘I’ll set down a chair,’ he said brightly, ‘and then we’ll see.’
</p>
<p>
	Sarah Moroz is a Franco-American journalist and translator based in Paris.&nbsp;She has contributed to the <em>Guardian</em>,<em> i-D</em>, <em>Bookforum</em>, and <em>Flash Art</em>, amongst other publications.
</p>
<p>
	Captions for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1. Pietro&nbsp;Spartà in his Chagny gallery space in front of Thomas Schütte's&nbsp;<em>Spartà&nbsp;</em><em>Hut (</em>2021). 2.&nbsp;Pietro Spartà in front of&nbsp;Richard Serra’s <em style="background-color: initial;">Octagon for Saint Eloi</em> (1991) in Chagny. 3.&nbsp;Pietro Spartà in Chagny's city center. 4.&nbsp;Pietro Spartà in front of Lawrence Weiner's&nbsp;<em style="background-color: initial;">Et sous les étoiles</em> (1994). All images by Louis Canadas for Paris+ par&nbsp;Art Basel.</p>

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