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Description
Giuseppe Panza was an Italian collector of contemporary and mostly American art who dedicated more than fifty years to collecting, acquiring some 2,500 works. In a time when contemporary art seems to pose the question, "What is art?" Panza exhibits remarkable confidence in choosing works for his collection. The purpose of this research is to provide an interpretation of Panza's take on art and artistic beauty. The first chapter of this research is dedicated to Panza, to his life and his activity as a collector. It shows how Panza's early influences and experiences have made him an art connoisseur for whom "beauty" always remained a central concern. The second chapter will present what I consider a peculiarity in Panza's take on art: his belief in the possibility of always relating events and creations of contemporary art with occurrences in the art of the past. The third chapter of the thesis will offer an analysis of the most recent debates on the return of beauty as an issue in contemporary art, starting from a brief history of aesthetics and moving to the contemporary debates. The analysis is carried out to establish a discourse about beauty that was conducted in the academic world and by Panza in his highly personal writings. This is done in the hope of better comprehending Panza's position in relation to those debates. The fourth chapter introduces the reader to "Panza the aesthete" and proposes parallels between the collector's take on beauty and art and art critic Dave Hickey's take on the subject. Just as Panza's appreciation of art is rooted in aesthetics, his comments on art are infused with philosophical speculations that build upon the idea of "truth," the basic problem of philosophy, as Panza himself defines it. An interpretation of Panza's take on the term "truth" is offered as conclusion to the chapter. Chapter five will present the reader with a brief illustration of the collector's legacy, giving a list of Panza's sales and donations, a description of his museum, and speculating over the reasons for choosing the art he selected for his third and final collection.
