by Redazione 06/11/2026
Categories: Events / Disclaimer
On November 12, the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca will honor the gallery owner and founder of the Galleria dell’Oca with testimonials from artists, scholars, and friends, looking back on more than forty years of her work and relationships.
A little over a year after the passing of Luisa Laureati—gallery owner, collector, essayist, and cultural organizer—the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca is dedicating a study day to her, retracing her journey through the testimonies of artists, scholars, and friends. The symposium *Artist Portraits with Luisa Laureati: Testimonies, Dialogues, Reinterpretations* will take place on Thursday, November 12, 2026, starting at 9:00 a.m., in the Guinigi Chapel of the San Francesco Complex in Lucca. Organized by the IMT School’s Multidisciplinary Scientific Area “Cultural Systems,” the event is curated by Giulia Lotti, director of the Goffredo Parise and Giosetta Fioroni Foundation and head of the Eliseo Mattiacci Studio, together with Linda Bertelli and Emanuele Pellegrini, faculty members at the IMT School.
For over forty years, from 1965 to 2008, Laureati brought the Galleria dell’Oca in Rome to life, turning it into a place of exchange and encounter for artists, critics, and intellectuals. His work evolved through a network of personal and professional relationships that, over time, supported the creative explorations of several generations of artists.
Following introductory remarks by Emanuele Pellegrini and Giulia Lotti, Salvatore Settis will open the presentations with “Una casa ospitale” (A Welcoming Home), dedicated to the years of his friendship with Laureati and to the private life of a figure for whom homes were also places of gathering and sharing. The morning session will be moderated by contemporary art historian Ester Coen and Barbara Cinelli, a professor at Roma Tre University.
The first in-depth discussion will focus on the early days of the Galleria dell’Oca, founded in the mid-1960s as a bookstore specializing in publications on art, architecture, and design. In 1967, the space began hosting exhibitions with *I Viaggi di Brek* by Gastone Novelli, an exhibition dedicated to the artist’s comics. Laureati and Novelli had met in 1961, marking the beginning of a friendship destined to endure over time. Raffaella Perna, from Sapienza University of Rome, will trace this transition in her talk *In the Beginning Was Brek: Gastone Novelli at the Galleria dell’Oca*.
His relationship with Matta also played a decisive role in the transformation of the bookstore into a gallery. Introduced through Laureati’s father, the artist soon became her friend. When the gallery owner proposed producing a series of lithographs to sell in the bookstore, Matta encouraged her to focus on canvases instead and arranged for three of his medium-sized works to be placed on consignment. This story will be the focus of *The Correspondence Between Matta and Luisa Laureati: Testimony of a Friendship*, presented by Paulina Caro Troncoso of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, joining us online from Chile.
In 1968, the gallery hosted an exhibition by Giulio Paolini featuring thirty-two works on paper, displayed on the walls of the bookstore with simple drawing pins. The artist will be present at the symposium alongside Bettina Della Casa for a dialogue titled *A due voci*. The program will also explore the relationship with Giosetta Fioroni, a central figure in the Roman art scene and part of Laureati’s circle of acquaintances. Linda Bertelli and Martina Cavalli—respectively a professor of Aesthetics and a doctoral candidate at the IMT School—will present “A Visit to the Collected Material.” Giosetta Fioroni and Luisa Laureati, with a particular focus on documents and archival traces.
The talk “Luisa Laureati, Sister” will be dedicated to Enzo Cucchi, bearing witness to a relationship forged through shared artistic and geographical journeys. The afternoon session, introduced by Michele Dantini, a professor at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, will continue with Luigi Ontani, who will present *Icoloca et Mitoloca*—a title that recalls his first exhibition at the Galleria dell’Oca—and with Nunzio, author of the presentation *Il sogno di Luisa*.
Nunzio’s participation also recalls *Affinità. Cinque artisti a San Gimignano*(*Affinities: Five Artists in San Gimignano*), a project realized in 1994 by Laureati outside the gallery’s spaces. On that occasion, in addition to Nunzio, Luciano Fabro, Eliseo Mattiacci, Giulio Paolini, and Jannis Kounellis were involved. The five artists identified five locations in the Tuscan city where they would create permanent installations, establishing a connection between the medieval heritage and contemporary art. The initiative marked a significant milestone in the gallerist’s career, extending her work into the urban sphere.
The symposium will also trace the changes in the gallery’s exhibition venues. In 2003, following the closure of the historic space on Via dell’Oca, the gallery reopened at two locations: Palazzo Bernini, at Via della Mercede 12/a, and Via Margutta 54. In the former, where Laureati had lived for many years with her husband, the art historian Giuliano Briganti, several exhibition rooms were created. The house thus became a space accessible primarily by invitation or upon request, where exhibitions alternated with meetings and conferences. This location is the focus of *Via della Mercede 12*, a presentation by Cornelia Mattiacci of the Prada Foundation and Studio Eliseo Mattiacci, which will explore the relationship between Laureati and Eliseo Mattiacci and the latter’s role in fostering the connection and collaboration with Alexander Iolas, an influential international art dealer.
The gallery’s history will also be explored through presentations by Marco Tirelli, with *Le Costellazioni dell’Oca*, and Gianni Dessì, with *Se una sera d’inverno…*. Their accounts will shed light on Laureati’s relationship with a younger generation of artists and the continuity of dialogue across different artistic languages and approaches.
Another chapter will be dedicated to Jannis Kounellis, with whom the gallery owner shared a long-standing collaboration. Michelle Coudray, from the Kounellis Archive, will present *Jannis Kounellis, Michelle Coudray, and Luisa Laureati*. Their relationship spanned various phases of the Galleria dell’Oca and culminated in the exhibition dedicated to the artist that inaugurated the Via del Vantaggio location in 2006—the final stage of the gallery’s exhibition activity before its permanent closure in 2008.
Giulia Lotti will conclude the day with *Fragments of a Multi-Voiced Portrait*, a presentation based on video testimonies from friends who remained close to Laureati until his final days. This contribution is part of an ongoing research project dedicated to the collection and archival preservation of these memories, which will complement the artists’ testimonies. The goal is to present a multifaceted portrait of the gallery owner and her personal and professional journey, drawing in part on the documents preserved in the Laureati Briganti archive.
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| Luisa Laureati: A Study Day in Lucca on the Gallery Owner Who Brought Italian Art to Life |
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