Carolina Drago in Conversation with Collector Edoardo Monti
Not every career is linear, and not every entrepreneur in the art business has a background in art and its markets. Edoardo Monti takes as his role model Leo Castelli, the world-renowned art dealer who started his gallery at the age of 50.
Monti is younger but similarly left his job in fashion communication in New York in his late 20s to launch an artist residency program located in the Palazzo Monti, an ancient building nestled in Brescia in Northern Italy. Edoardo is an outstanding host, welcoming artists, guests, and patrons with an easy-going approach, exquisite manners, and presenting a space where hyper contemporary art and design coexist with more classical pieces under the aegis of airy Rococo frescos. Here, the “slow living” lifestyle is not a luxury but a simple daily ritual.
Eager to learn more about the project, we recently sat down with the young collector and art patron to delve deeper into the key values that underpin it.
Edoardo Monti. Photo by Luca Santese.
Carolina Drago: Where does your interest in contemporary art and design come from?
Edoardo Monti: As a child, I collected objects: marbles, bouncing balls; I wanted to store and own objects. The pleasure of research is an inexhaustible hunger. It is like a passion for travel. It is an unlimited desire; indeed, every experience reinforces that desire. Also, the pleasure of making a journey. No one is born with a complete collection, and no one realizes it in a short time. It’s also nice to go back and see what has formed you over the years or months and is part of you in your story. In my case, this passion has a percentage that is innate, and my family encouraged me to cultivate this urge. I did humanist studies at the Classical Lyceum and later moved to London where I studied art and design at Central Saint Martins and had access to an almost unlimited number of artefacts of incredible quality. The five-year experience in New York was crucial. This metropolis is a central pillar in art, especially contemporary. It remains the global capital for commerce, quality, and above all, innovation. Arriving there at the age of 18, this city really formed me and brought me a completely new world view.
Palazzo Monti.
CD: What did living in the US teach you?
EM: Working for five years at Stella McCartney in the internal communication office, I learned what it means to communicate effectively in all aspects of marketing that apply to fashion, art, and creativity, which are similar in their techniques and strategies. A good idea or a good product without adequate communication risks ending up in thin air. Vice versa, if there is too much communication, the project does not hold and false illusions are created. I lived those years when the art world, for the first time, took digital communication seriously. I also got in touch and then became friends with my peers at Artsy. Since the beginning, it has been a startup with a visionary project. In this sense, confronting other people, especially my peers, the network, and the sense of community you build allows one to look deeply at various dimensions. New York and this scenario stimulated me to start making small investments as a private collector. It was a collection of passion interest, not so much investment at the time.
Partial view of Ludovica Anversa’s Per questo fiore nel fianco, 2020. Oil on linen. 330.2 × 406.4 cm.
CD: In radically changing careers and launching the new project, what were your resistances and fears?
EM: It was both an emotional and rational choice. For me, New York is a place to develop ideas, but not an easy terrain to start a business. There is a hyper-competitive dimension. I would never have launched a project there. On the other hand, what blocked me was the guilt to leave a career well underway at home with social relationships. I perceived them as a privilege and a responsibility. I knew I didn’t want to continue my career in communication and in Italy, I had a unique opportunity. It was a gut feeling, it is a great desire that I had in my heart, which then came into play rationally and made me ponder finding a strategy. Here in Brescia, I wanted to recreate this idea of community.
CD: What really convinced you to take the plunge?
EM: Three main ingredients: [the first being] the nostalgia of returning to my incomparable country of origin and returning there as an adult. The second was the availability of the family palace. I had never lived there before and we did not want to rent it as a location for events nor sell it. Using it for the project allowed me to already have a venue. The third was precisely the desire to recreate that sense of community I found in New York and transplant it to Brescia. So, in 2017, I launched the project while still working in New York. I used my free time and a part of my savings to set up the building, making it suitable for hosting artists and their production, while also hiring collaborators. Once I was sure that the project had started well, I left New York and moved at the end of 2018. It was the right decision, and I didn’t regret my choice once.
Bea Bonafini, Slick Submissions, 2018. Pastel on wool and nylon carpet inlay. 366 × 426 cm.
CD: Can you describe the business structure of this project?
EM: Palazzo Monti is a non-profit cultural association. In the beginning, I was very naive, I had never made a business plan, and I had no idea of the costs and challenges I would face. From 2017 we operated as private hosts, and then in 2019, we became a cultural association. We were inspired by the American approach for the funding strategy, which is the right formula. We have a group of friends of Palazzo Monti, with four levels of donation from €50 to €1000 that in the tax return can be stated as a liberal disbursement therefore you can deduct it from income taxes. The donations weigh for less than a third of our turnover. And then there are the events like dinners, Sunday brunches, and openings. We anticipate costs, but this helps us to create the community that follows us and appreciates what we do and is one of our key values. Finally, I cover a part of it, by doing freelance consulting and communication projects.
Andrea Bocca, Untitled, 2018. Cyanotype on linen. 226 × 161 × 8 cm.
CD: What are the results you have seen in these last four years and has a bond developed with your territory?
EM: We have hosted two hundred artists in almost five years, as well as numerous visiting supporters. Everyone has been able to make their own contribution to improve themselves and to learn from others. One of the reasons for our success is that we try to give human value to contemporary art, usually seen as something unattainable and elitist. In this sense, developing long-term relationships is crucial. It has been a long job that has been rewarded by press recognition. For instance, the design magazine Domus has counted us among the top-fifteen residencies for artists in the world. We receive over two hundred requests a month from artists who want to be hosted and from supporters. The quality of content and a good strategy always pays off. We have a team of peers, all under 30 years old, and even the artists we host are emerging. Our shows are free to access. In addition, our exhibitions aim to desacralize the space, which is a living space, with common areas made to welcome and be experienced by everyone, including private spaces where the artists are hosted. Then there is the relationship that is established with artists over time.
CD: How do you deal with them?
EM: Acquiring artworks and buying them is a purely economic transaction per se. Certainly, when the number becomes conspicuous, the support to the artist becomes evident but indeed it is very asymmetrical. I think it is wrong to place the collector at such a high level of the economic chain. Proper patronage is part of the relationship established with the artists by following their projects and supporting them in the production process. For example, supporting them in acquiring materials, or by helping with transport and enabling them to develop relationships. At Palazzo Monti, artists can live and share time and space with them. Sometimes relationships develop into friendships that last even beyond the residency period.
Chloe Wise’s Pescatarians in the hands of an angry God, Maria Fragoso’s Edo a tavola, and Kyle Vu-Dunn’s Late Breakfast in Palazzo Monti.
CD: What next piece would you like to add to your collection or the art or design institution that you consider most emblematic?
EM: The dream piece I want to acquire is Caesar Salad Chandelier by Chloe Wise (2021), which is halfway between design and art. Speaking of institutions, I like when space is given to site-specific installations next to temporary exhibitions, such as Dia Beacon in the US and the Bennesse Art Site in Naoshima, Japan. They are both of fantastic quality and worth the trip.
Thanks to Edoardo Monti on behalf of MADE IN BED.
Images by Omar Sartor, courtesy of Palazzo Monti.
To discover more about Palazzo Monti, you can visit the website or follow the project on Instagram.
Carolina Drago
Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED