Bruno Corà: “art and wine share alchemical aspect of transformation”

“Art and wine share the alchemical aspect of transformation. The transformation of grapes into wine is the result of a millennia-old experience that humanity has always cultivated and accomplished producing a precious liquid that we all appreciate, just as an artist recognizes a material, like gold, into a work of art”. These are the words by Bruno Corà, one of Italy most prominent art critics and president of the prestigious Burri Foundation, which have accompanied the installation of “Vene d’Oro del Pensiero Magmatico” - “Golden Veins of Magmatic Thought”, a new permanent contemporary artwork by internationally renowned Iranian artist Bizhan Bassiri, in the last days, at the palace owned and representative of WineNews, in Montalcino, for “Venti di Ottobre” No. 4, the annual event promoted by the Bassiri Foundation (where we also interviewed him).
“With this new work - underlined Bruno Corà - Bassiri returns to a material he has used before, gold, around which, over the years, he has created a series of works he calls the “Riserva Aurea” - “Golden Reserve”, housed in the vault of Fabro, the artist’s studio (in Umbria, where the Bassiri Foundation is based, founded by Bassiri and his wife Camilla Cionini Visani, ed). Here, in this cavity, I believe Bassiri perceived something deep, a visceral element of the earth, but also an ancient hypogeal presence, as found in Etruscan culture, for example. I think he became interested in the fissures between rocks and identified that space as the place to produce the “golden form”. When I entered the cave, I was struck by the gleams of gold light, which suddenly reminded me of pupils watching me in the dark, or golden teeth often found in people who lived 100, 200, or 300 years ago, where dentistry also worked on the mouth, the oracular place from which words emerge. When I realized that a light source behind me was casting my shadow onto the cave wall, my memory worked philologically, and I thought of Plato cave, of shadows, and how all of this echoed through time: as if this succession of ancient and contemporary moments were blending together”. Bizhan Bassiri is an internationally acclaimed artist whose works have captivated galleries around the world, from Europe to Asia, his continent of birth, thanks to his technique, characterized by the use of various materials. He is also known for having theorized “Magmatic Thought”, and has lived in Italy for over 40 years, between Rome, Fabro, and Montalcino, which he has chosen as his personal retreat.
His new work “arose from a personal and family friendship with a great artist like Bizhan Bassiri - explained Alessandro Regoli, director of WineNews, one of the most followed websites on Italian wine (2 million tracked Ips), founded with his wife Irene Chiari -  a friendship in the most ancestral sense of the term, which we wanted to seal with the curiosity and passion typical of collecting, but also with a story to tell, like with other masters who have left artistic traces in this building, even through the encounters we’ve had in our work as storytellers of wine & food. Together with Bizhan Bassiri, we wanted to bring new life to the most natural and simple cavity of the building, in the heart of Montalcino history, where the most precious and identity-rich memories are usually kept. Because if it is true that beautiful things take time, they also need “no time, no space” places (like this one), full of energy, where the foundations of ideas arise. Over the centuries, beauty (of aesthetics and thought) and economy have been inseparably linked. Because investments in art and culture drive the productivity of businesses, territories, and communities, and beauty (which arises from dreams, where past, present, and future merge into a single vision) is a life accelerator. This project aims to be a small example - which we believe it is virtuous - of how a business can support art, and how art can inspire the life of a business. A small, true coup de foudre”.
And, which, finally, has also created a new “connection” with another highly valuable contemporary artwork present in Montalcino: “Il Pozzo” - “The Well”, a 2001 work by Jannis Kounellis, one of the most important artistic souls of our time, created thanks to an idea by the Galleria d’Arte Continua, as recalled by Michelle Coudray, president of the Kounellis Foundation and the artist partner, visiting it together with the new artwork by Bizhan Bassiri.