AT: How did you start engaging with the art world and how/when did you decide it could become your profession?

SB: I have always seen art as a necessary presence in my daily life. After the European high school I attended the academy of fine arts where I approached Turin realities such as Arte Povera, Carol Rama and many others. In 2012 I bought my first work. It was a drawing of the 60’s by Carol Rama that I was able to resell, but I realized that I was left without my drawing and I started to look for others and so on. This was my first real approach. Today, years later, I finally managed, together with my partner Stefano Bonzano, to open our gallery.

AT: What convinced you opening your own space?

SB: I was convinced to open my space because my interest, in addition to the art market, is directed to research. A physical space also serves to give the artists who are part of this scene the chance to express themselves through my gallery and present innovative, fresh and intellectually contemporary projects to the public.

AT: What are the toughest and the most fulfilling aspects of your job?

SB: The hardest aspect is certainly the historical period we are living through. Another difficult element, deriving from the first one, is being behind a computer all day long, as we are forced to do today. I prefer instead to meet interesting people, discuss art, see collections, find paintings not yet known at the market, visit artists’ studios, find new collaborative figures for the future of the gallery, talk with artists about projects never realized and find a way to realize them. Among the most satisfying aspects, the public’s appreciation of our projects is certainly very motivating. What we want and must do over time will be to have our voice in the history of contemporary art.

AT: How do you intend the gallerist – artist relationship? What is the first step you make and how do you relate with them?

SB: In my opinion, the relationship between gallerist and artist must be one of open dialogue and mutual support. I perceive the work of the gallery owner and that of the artist as directly proportional. Before starting a dialogue with an artist I look at all his artistic production and start asking him a series of questions that help me understand if it could be a lasting collaboration. I prefer to represent a few artists in whom I believe a lot and of whom I am the first to support their artistic research. I am convinced that artist and gallerist should start a path of growth together lasting in time.

AT: Tell us about your clear will of putting in dialogue works by contemporary artists and modern art works on the different floors of the gallery. Why this particular curatorial and exhibition choice?

SB: The exhibitions in the gallery are very often bipersonal: dialogues between artists from different periods with a common thread. I try to recreate a dialogue between works by artists belonging to different historical periods in order to make visible how much some artists are linked to each other through ideals, aesthetic taste and thoughts, reworked thanks to the course of events. This allows a mutual reinforcement and the creation of a storytelling between the different artists. For example, we are currently presenting ”La ragazza di città” a solo show by Lucia Leuci in dialogue with Carol Rama’s iconic works from the 1960s.

AT: TEMPESTA is a new gallery on the Milanese panorama. How do you live the relationship with the city and the networking with colleagues?

SB: I am happy to say that I am in close contact with several gallery owners, young and not, of the Milanese panorama. This is both because I started working with historic gallery owners as an art dealer, but also because, while frequenting Milan, I got to know various personalities on the Milanese and international art scene with whom I have various projects for the future and with whom I have the opportunity to confront myself about the future of our galleries.

AT: How would you describe the collectors of your gallery?

SB: The collectors of our gallery, young and not, are people interested in a sober aesthetic, and, at the same time, captivating, with an intrinsic meaning that is clearly visible to the eye of the observer.

AT: What is your relationship with the art fairs? Which art fairs you get along more with, today?

SB: I really miss the pre-pandemic art world. I love being in touch with people, hearing new ideas, new points of view and seeing in one big room what happens in the rest of the world. To me, all this is represented by fairs. I will certainly be interested in being part of them in the future. Being from Turin and working in Milan, both cities I love, the first two fairs I intend to attend, as soon as all this bad period will pass, will be Artissima and Miart.

AT: What is the role of the digital tool in what you do?

SB: The role of digital in this moment is surely fundamental not to stand still. However, in my opinion, online art is a bit like a person with whom you want to spend time together: a video call is better than not seeing each other at all, but the presence is priceless.

AT: Next projects on site?

SB: In the coming months we will present solo shows of Ane Graff and Alma Heikkkila in dialogue with great historical artists, but I will not reveal everything immediately

AT: If you had to give some advice to another youngster who wants to open a space, what it would be?

SB: Be sure of what you do, because your gallery is an extension of the gallery owner’s thought and aesthetics. So you have to know your own fact, a bit of courage and you start, this is the advice I give myself as a young gallery owner.

Tempesta Gallery was born in 2020, the year of potential change. With a declared mission of the founder Simone Becchio, the gallery undertakes a direct and frontal dialogue on the relationships between human beings, Nature and the various socio-cultural ecosystems.

The gallery proposes urgent and recurring themes that vary from the anthropocene to gender, faced with a unique way of comparison between different periods and moments of art history.

An innovative project that showcases in a dynamic and unexpected way, the dialogue between ancient, contemporary, Italian and International artists, in renovated historical spaces in the centre of Milan.

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