When and how did you first set up your gallery?

I opened my first gallery with Massimo Mininni in 1994, in a small space in via San Francesco di Sales in the Roman quarter of Trastevere, next to the Orto Botanico. The idea was to present artists that we were both interested in but who had not yet shown their work in Rome. These included the Italians Mario Airò, Stefano Arienti, Flavio Favelli, Eva Marisaldi and Grazia Toderi and, among the non-Italians, Wolfgang Tillmans, Charles Avery, Claudia Wieser, Marcel van Eeden, Richard Woods, Erik van Lieshout, Shahryar Nashat and Art Club 2000.

Talk to us about the space you chose for your gallery and its location.

Studio SALES is on the third floor of a mid 19th-century building in the historic quarter of Esquilino. The building originally housed the Royal Academy of Belgium and the gallery’s spaces are in the former studios used by the artists hosted by the Belgian crown, following in the wake of the Grand Tour. During the fascist period, the building was ceded to the Italian State, which gave the studios to regime artists, maintaining their original function.

Something important that you learned from an artist? And from a collector?

I have learned the same things from both: to pay attention to detail and have a keen, focused eye.

Are you a collector?

I have always been a collector, indeed a compulsive one. I started with toy cars as a child and then, as a teenager, postcards of the art I’d seen in museums. By now, I’ve been firmly devoted to contemporary art for a long, long time.