If in the 60s to 90s Italian art of the twentieth century entered the salons of the bourgeoisie, where the suburban cities of Sironi approached the metaphysical squares of De Chirico or still lifes of De Pisis they faced each other with the roofs of Guttuso and today this period seems to no longer interest the collecting which, on the other hand, is increasingly oriented towards international contemporary and post-war art, better if American.
In fact, all of this is part of the new lifestyle, which has already seen the crisis of furniture and art in the 800th century. For several years now, the bourgeois class that boasted one for years no longer exists status of belonging precisely in possessing a Venetian trumeau and perhaps figurative works by Italian artists on the walls, perhaps from Roman or Milanese galleries, which in the post-war period brought together all the artists of the period. The Galleria del Naviglio itself, in via Manzoni 45 in Milan owned by Carlo Cardazzo in the 40s offered artists such as Balla, Boccioni, Carrá, Morandi and Severini and later in 1951 the movement of spatialism also began right here, well represented by Lucius Fontana. In the 60s instead, here appear in the gallery, Bonalumi, Castellani and Manzoni, authors who are all the rage right now. While in Rome, immediately after the second war, there is the development of the other prosecutors of the previous "Roman School" were the so-called "tonalists" who starting from an arcane classicism arrive at spatialism as, Corrado Cagli, Emanuele Cavalli, Giuseppe Capogrossi, gravitating around the activity of the "Comet Gallery". And to follow also new young artists - more abstract - the brothers join Afro and Mirko Basaldella, Toti Scialoja, but also Renzo Vespignani and Renato Gattuso.
But how come the figurative art of De Pisis or Carrà can no longer be among the wishes of collectors, while the conceptual art of Fontana or Manzoni cannot fail to be present today in any collection of modern and contemporary art? Simply a matter of fashion. A fashion that is shared all over the world and not only in Italy, indeed it is better to know that a well-known American collector has on the walls of his living room, a spatial concept – expectations in red and with five cuts, which unleashes desire to own one like it. It must also be said that the most desired art is also the one that has a higher economic value, that is, it is valid for the cost and not for the artistic importance. What is the difference between a spatial concept yellow with three cuts and a spatial concept white with the same cuts? None except the cost. The red or white color in Fontana's canvases is more in demand and therefore worth more, and this means that it is revalued every time a new transaction takes place.
It must also be said that works of this kind enter the life model of a new society, far removed from the bourgeois tastes and status symbols of previous generations; in short… owning a painting by De Pisis, like one marine still life it doesn't make fashion on the contrary, alas it seems really out of fashion.
Homes are increasingly oriented towards minimalist furnishings, where the essential becomes almost an obsession, to the point of camouflaging dove gray sofas with London smoky gray walls or vice versa. Places where contemporary art is the only missing element which confirms that tastes have radically changed.
This tendency to no longer love certain XNUMXth-century authors has led their value to drop and to no longer be treated by the "big" international auction houses. But there are also those who see in this moment of "confusion" an opportunity to look for works that are sold in "national" auction houses and buy them at a decidedly favorable price. In fact, in the last year these houses have been offering historic XNUMXth-century works at very attractive prices, which are almost always sold.
It is certain that these, sooner or later, will also increase in value; when? we don't know yet, but we have to be confident, time passes and fashions change or come back!
