The Italian example of Galleria Campari
In the world there are a lot of companies that make up their own corporate museum, based on the existing territorial context and perfectly integrated with the productive circumstances of the company.
For Corporate Museum we mean an art collection, born on the basis of an Archive, included within a company with the aim of enhancing its brand and sharing its identity.
At an international level we can mention the Porsche Museum or the BMW Welt; but Italy is not far behind.
Among the examples there is the Galleria Campari, a space dedicated to the relation between the brand and its communication through art and design.
Campari’s corporate museum, founded in 2010 on the occasion of the company’s 150th anniversary, owes its strength to the uniqueness and richness of the Historical Archive, a veritable “cross-cultural repository that gathers over 3,000 works on paper , original affiches from the Belle Époque, posters and advertising graphics from the Thirties to the Nineties, signed by artists such as Fortunato Depero, Guido Crepax, Bruno Munari and Ugo Nespolo, just to name a few “.
These are the words of Paolo Cavallo, Director of Galleria Campari, who explains the birth of the Campari Archive, the criteria used to manage and implement it, without neglecting the relationship with technology.
Art Rights Magazine: What were the conditions that contributed to the birth of the Campari Archive?
Paolo Cavallo: “The Archive is the result of the attention that the brand has always had in preserving the testimonies of its actions, both commercial and promotional. Initially the conservation had practical purposes, while today is linked to the search for the history of a brand that has woven its corporate path with the evolution of the customs of our country. First of all Davide Campari, at the end of the 19th century, understood that Art could become a way to give life to its advertising philosophy, developing over the years with the best Italian artists of the period, cutting-edge communication strategies, unthinkable for that period. Over time all the outcomes of these collaborations have been collected in our archival fund, of which only 5% is exhibited inside the spaces of Galleria Campari; on display we have 150 original works, selected with the purpose of enhance the most significant pieces of the Archive. We periodically organise exhibitions to have the opportunity to exhibit pieces from our fund, which have never been shown before. “
Art Rights Magazine: What are the criteria followed when managing and implementing the Archive?
Paolo Cavallo: “The Campari Archive is based on a database dating back to the Nineties, which we are completely reorganising; the aim is to allocate the works in the new spaces of the Campari building, and to do this we are providing a renewed catalog. The works are archived according to the type of document: posters, prints, sketches, photographs, artist’s books, price lists, labels, TV spots, carousels, merchandising, design objects, mixology tools. We maintain strong ties with the heirs and Archives of the artists who have collaborated with the Campari company, especially for what concerns copyright, because in the past, when the works were commissioned, they were not expected to have different uses. Today, however, we live in a world where even the use of vintage graphics goes through the web, social networks and other forms of communication. We contact the Artist Archives in order to open dialogues aimed at using and enhancing the works of these artists. In particular we have open channels with the Archive of Fortunato Depero and with the heirs of Bruno Munari. Over the years, the Archive has been enriched with the marketing communication material progressively produced, as well as a series of projects and awards promoted by the brand such as Street art RedVolution 2.0 (2014) and Campari Art Prize in collaboration with Artissima, one of the most important international contemporary art fairs, established in 2017. The project with Artissima has been strongly desired to reinforce the attention that the company has towards the art world; the three-year partnership is to host the work of the winner under 35 of the Campari Art Prize in the spaces of the Galleria Campari, with the aim of looking at the future of art and implementing the collection with some works “.
Art Rights Magazine: What is the relationship with technology and what tools do you currently use for management?
Paolo Cavallo: “A large part of the Archive has been digitised and rendered in the form of interactive installations on the occasion of the creation of Galleria Campari, where the materials are accessible to the public through multimedia devices governed by the Arduino system. The goal is to create over time an Archive that is accessible to researchers, scholars, professionals with the aim of enhancing the brand’s heritage and bringing the public closer to the issues of conservation and archiving. “
Archiving, exhibiting and sharing a common and universal transversal art heritage: this is the uniqueness of the Corporate Museum.
