The patronage of Antinori, in the cellar of the Bargino, the work of Californian Sam Falls

Art and wine united in the name of the Antinori family. Where the winery is a work of architectural art in the open air, in the historic heart of Chianti Classico, in Bargino, in the municipality of San Casciano Val di Pesa, the artistic vein flows and the works, contemporary or not, enrich the panorama and the views of the estate of the family of Marquis Piero Antinori. To enrich the collection of contemporary works of art in the cellar, there is a large canvas made by the Californian artist Sam Falls. The work, which is spread over three floors of stairs, is made with an experimental technique that combines dry pigments and the free and undisputed action of nature, after being left exposed to the elements in the middle of the vineyard.

Like the Medici, the Antinori also called artists from all over the world to embellish the walls of the cellar with their works. The so-called artistic patronage fits perfectly with the entrepreneurial will and sensitivity of wine producers. It was the will of Alessia Antinori, in collaboration with the curator Ilaria Bonacossa and with the support of her sister Albiera Antinori, that commissioned the work to Falls, born in 1984 and master of a painting technique that relates human action to the natural intervention of natural and atmospheric agents.

As told to WineNews, Alessia had known the visual artwork of Falls from a friend who collected art in America. Thus the work “Untitled (Antinori)” is placed on the walls surrounding the main staircase of the Bargino cellar, the large “site-specific” installation, a new work specifically conceived to interact with the extraordinary hilly landscape of the Chianti Classico, which will enrich the permanent collection held at the Antinori winery in the Chianti Classico area and will be visible from Wednesday 26 June 2019.

Works, those of Falls, represented and shaped by nature: “I saw - explains Alessia Antinori - the works of Falls, finding them very evocative, and I thought that, finally, we could bring, from the outside of the cellar to its inside, nature. I did not think twice about it. The colors are perfect, luckily because with Sam you never know what the final colors will be until the end. Spring and non-autumn colors. We have acquired this work together with Albiera, and we will lend it to the company for many years. This is a symbol that testifies that art is not just an investment or a game”.
The work, therefore, looks like a large canvas, long and narrow, which has been sprinkled with dry pigments, and then left between the vineyards. Through the contact with natural and atmospheric elements, such as the sun, humidity, the spontaneous fall of leaves and shrubs, the canvas was “painted” by nature and, subsequently, installed in one of the two staircases that cross the structure in height. In this way, the natural life of the Chianti Classico landscape will enter the underground architecture of the cellar, creating a surprising interplay between interior and exterior, between nature and contemporary architecture, metaphorically transforming itself into a natural window.

The Antinori winery in Chianti Classico is the ideal platform for artistic production, where artists are called upon to imagine specific projects and at the same time to deal with the impressive history of the Antinori family’s private collection and, as in this case, with a tradition that is above all linked to the territory, to viticulture and to the specificity of its natural landscape.