Pananti auction house launches webseries to bring behind-the-scenes insight

A webseries to learn about the behind-the-scenes of an auction house. It’s Casa Pananti, the episodic series launched by Galleria Pananti Casa d’Aste, founded in Florence in 1968 by Piero Pananti flanked by his son Filippo and, in the last decade, entrepreneur Ugo Colombo. Pananti takes up the challenge of storytelling and offers the webseries to tell, in a spontaneous language, everything behind the auction house. A cycle of episodes that testify how auction day is the final moment of a long journey characterized by cadenced rituals, interrupted by unexpected events, emotions and surprises, but nevertheless never left to chance. The episodes can be viewed on Pananti Casa d’Aste’s website and YouTube and Facebook channels.

Through the camera gaze of director Giovanni Piscaglia, a picture emerges of an authentic Tuscan family that is “kind and toothless,” convivial, with a sense of humor, but at the same time pragmatic, driven by an innate passion for art because, as Piero Pananti argues, “art improves life. It serves to distract you while you walk through real life.” Between the language of reality show and documentary, each of the episodes engages the audience in a moment in Pananti’s life and in the teamwork of each member, revealing what lies beyond bidding and bargaining.

Protagonists of the webseries are family members, experts, and the work team who share in the daily routine of the Auction House: Piero Pananti, founder of the Gallery, a lively artistic coterie of artists and men of letters; Filippo Pananti, administrator and beater who, with passion and tireless attention, takes care of every step from the acquisition of works to estimates and relations with staff and clients; Emanuele Castellani, expert in ancient art, who studies the condition of works, attributions and the composition of catalogs; Lorenzo Lippi, graphic designer and designer to whom goes the task of taking care of editorial graphics and coordinates sales and budgets from the web. Along with them, the professionals, collaborators, who take care of the administration, secretariat, storage, movement of works, relations with the public, and then there is Marchino, the honorary president, and also the dachshund Margot.

“With the simplicity that belongs to us, we start from our story, which is one of knowledge gained in the Gallery, to open the doors to an often closed and niche world,” explains Filippo Pananti administrator and director of the Auction House. “Through these short stories we want to engage a broader and younger audience, taking them with us on this fascinating journey that a work takes from the moment it enters the Gallery and before it is hammered out.”

During its more than 50 years of activity, the Pananti Gallery has from the beginning been a meeting point for artists such as Nino Tirinnanzi, Mario Marcucci, Mino Maccari, and Venturino Venturi, and writers such as Alessandro Parronchi, Vasco Pratolini, Mario Luzi, and Eugenio Montale, who have collaborated with critical essays and contributions to the Catalogues. He has curated exhibitions of De Pisis, De Chirico, Andy Warhol, and Ottone Rosai.

Today Pananti is an Auction House directed by Filippo Pananti, who in its Florentine headquarters in Palazzo Peruzzi carries on such an important legacy with the same passion. The first Italian House to carry out live streaming auctions in 2012, to date Pananti has exhibited, in-person and online, 75 thousand lots for n.45 auctions a year, of paintings, sculptures, documents, jewelry and other objects.

In the last decade, entrepreneur Ugo Colombo has joined the corporate structure, contributing to its internationalization and becoming an integral part of the Pananti family.

Publications include the historic magazine L’Indiscreto edited by Silvio Loffredo and Piero Pananti, to which artists and writers such as Mino Maccari, Ennio Flaiano and many others collaborated. Today it is online, edited by writer and visual artist Francesco D’Isa, with articles, insights and original essays by young names in cultural journalism, as well as translations, reviews, fiction and other experiments. “It talks about difficult things, but tries to do it in a simple way,” explains Francesco D’Isa. Pananti Casa d’Aste Gallery is based in Florence and has an Atelier in Milan.

Pananti auction house launches webseries to bring behind-the-scenes insight

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