Giuseppe Panza’s Wunderkammer or Cabinet of Curiosities is on display in the Negozio Olivetti on Piazza San Marco, Venice.

The Panza di Biumo Wunderkammer in the Negozio Olivetti, Venice. From 12th of June to 27th of October 2019.

Giuseppe Panza di Biumo (1923-2010) was a collector, sponsor and pioneer. Lifelong he was particularly attracted by the tendencies that focused on the idea behind any artistic practice. He would say,  “The idea is the beginning of everything”. To coincide with the 58^th Venice Biennale, the Negozio Olivetti on Piazza San Marco presents ‘Wunderkammer Olivetti’ or rather, the Panza cabinet of curiosities, a collection of 33 small rarities that Panza collected or received as gifts over the years, including objects, tools and mechanical inventions.

The pieces that have been selected were all created in the thirty years from the 1960s to the 1990s and, for the most part, are by the main exponents of Minimalism, Conceptual, and Environmental art: Walter de Maria, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Richard Nonas, Dan Flavin, Joseph Beuys, Robert Barry, Vincenzo Agnetti, Ian Wilson, Jene Highstein, Piero Fogliati, Douglas Davies, Paolo Calzolari and Eric Orr.

FAI agreed to take on the loan of the former Olivetti show room in 2011, partly because of the important role that the typewriter manufacturers played in the history of Italian design, but especially because of the show room’s outstanding interior, which is by the great architect Carlo Scarpa. The perfect geometries, the meticulous attention to detail, and the gentle light effects of marble and Murano glass are particularly suited to welcoming these 33 small artistic creations, which are displayed on the supports originally made to show the typewriters, so that each is given individual prominence.