Lunetta11

Ismaele Nones, Buona Fortuna Ribelli, 2022, partial exhibition view, Lunetta11, Borgata Lunetta. Courtesy: Lunetta11. Photo: Giulio Fossati

The Lunetta11 gallery was set up as recently as 2019, in line with Claudia Zunino and Francesco Pistoi’s wish to bring contemporary art to an old village in the Langhe. Following the family tradition, Francesco Pistoi – son of the gallerist Eva Menzio and the art critic and gallerist Luciano Pistoi – chose as his exhibition venue a location that is decentralized but open to cultural exchanges at an international level, in the heart of the Alta Langa area. 

Brian Belott, The Rassembler, 2021, partial exhibition view, Lunetta11, Borgata Lunetta. Courtesy Lunetta11. Photo: Max Tomasinelli

The gallery is always on the lookout for emerging talents in contemporary art, who it places alongside established artists, as in the opening exhibition of the gallery, which featured Giulio Paolini as the spiritual father of five young artists; or more recently, in 2023, when in the exhibition Giovani cuori correte liberi (Young Hearts Run Free) the canvases of Pierluigi Scandiuzzi and Lorenzo Modica were juxtaposed with the works of Tano Festa and Mario Schifano. 

LUNETTA11, Borgata Lunetta. Courtesy Lunetta11. Photo: Giulio Fossati.

In addition to its classic gallery activities, Lunetta11 organizes exhibition projects in historical locations of the local area: villages, sanctuaries, chapels, churches and palazzi, preserving them and letting them vibrate with new life. Over the years, its deep-rooted relationship with the Langhe has led to the creation of exhibition projects that promote contemporary art in an area rich in natural beauty, broadening its cultural offer and reaching out to a varied and increasingly international audience. 

Since 2022, the gallery has been involved in the Casa Gramsci cultural project: a room used for social purposes in the NH Collection Torino Piazza Carlina hotel, once the home of Antonio Gramsci, the founder of the Italian Communist Party. In the room, which is at once a venue and a work of art by Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, exhibition projects alternate, each one accompanied by the publication of “Made in Popolo”, a manifesto devoted to Gramsci’s propaganda activities. 

“Art in general is a gift that we exchange between different intelligences. Gifts should never be useful, but something you love.”
Francesco Pistoi and Claudia Zunino. Courtesy Lunetta11. Photo: Virginia Mingolla

In conversation with Claudia Zunino and Francesco Pistoi, Lunetta11

When and how did you open your gallery?

We opened the Lunetta11 gallery in 2019 with the aim of drawing attention to contemporary art in a unique place like the Langhe in Piedmont.

What made you want to open a gallery?

We come from families that have always been involved with culture. We put ourselves on the line to support young Italian and international artists because we blindly believe in the artists to come.

Giulio Paolini, Musa, partial exhibition view, 2019, Lunetta11, Borgata Lunetta. Courtesy: Lunetta11. Photo: Giulio Fossa
The gallery doesn’t bear your names: tell us how the name Lunetta11 came about.

Lunetta is a small village in the Alta Langa that takes its name From the half-moon shape it forms on the hillside. Along with our families, we restored some houses and brought them back to life; now it’s where we live. The street number of the gallery is 11, hence Lunetta11.

Do you think contemporary art is useful? Must it be so?

Art in general is a gift that we exchange between different intelligences. Gifts should never be useful, but something you love.

How do you picture your gallery in ten years?

We picture it is as being green like a branch that doesn’t break and blue like the desire to open one by the sea.

Read the full interview

Artists

  • Brian Belott
  • Sara Cortesi
  • Francesco Maluta
  • Edoardo Manzoni
  • Ismaele Nones
  • Giulio Paolini
  • Pierluigi Scandiuzzi
  • Simone Settimo