A Room with a View
Italian and international art in private collections in Salento (1963-2015)

From 27 September 2026 to 10 January 2027, Fondazione Biscozzi | Rimbaud presents in Lecce, the exhibition A Room with a View. Italian and international art in private collections in Salento (1963-2015), curated by Paolo Bolpagni and Lorenzo Madaro.

The exhibition propose itself as a first survey on the contemporary art collecting in Salento. A phenomenon observed not like an optional or an episodic one, but in terms of a free and articulated cultural plot, of which it is intended to return wealth.

“With this exhibition” explains presidentDominique Rimbaud “Fondazione Biscozzi | Rimbaud – a place in which a private collection has already become a shared heritage – represents the ideal context for this project, although temporary, reaffirming its mission to share beauty. I am delighted to welcome the extraordinary treasures guarded by our collector friends from Salento and by the ‘new Salentine’ – people who have chosen to live in this area, recognising it not only as a place to live but also as a space of cultural responsibility. 

In this regard, A Room with a View. Italian and International Art in private collections in Salento (1963-2015) does not merely present works coming from private collections of the territory, but it questionsthe transition betweenthe domestic dimension to the institutional space, from the individual choice to the possibility of a collective narration.

The exhibition itinerary displays 27 works by Carla Accardi, A-One (Anthony Clark), Stefano Arienti, Massimo Bartolini, Gabriele Basilico, Mirella Bentivoglio, Joseph Beuys, Luigi Ghirri, Peter Halley,Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Maraniello, Nunzio, Luigi Ontani, Mimmo Paladino, Pino Pinelli, Mimmo Rotella, Andrea Sala, Mario Schifano, Ettore Spalletti and Franco Vimercati.

The selection of artists and the high quality of artworks highlight how the Salento region can become not only a landing place for the artworks, but also a critical viewpoint from which to rethink certain specific trajectories in Italian and international art over recent decades.

Through this core group, varied in the styles and media employed, the exhibition becomes a non-linear map of taste, perspective and the responsibility of collecting, highlighting how the Salento region can become not only a landing place for the artworks, but also a critical viewpoint from which to rethink certain specific trajectories in art over recent decades.

Paolo Bolpagni, co-curator of the exhibition, states: ‘The exhibition aims to explore, for the first time in a complete and systematic manner, the phenomenon of contemporary art collecting in Lecce, throughout its province and, in general, in Salento. What emerges is a scenario that may come as a surprise to many. However, the intention is not just to present important or interesting works, but to identify, where necessary, certain currents, retracing, so to speak, a story. This is clearly only a small part of the highly complex evolutionary history of visual art forms over the last two decades – or approximately – of the last century and at the beginning of the 21^st century, but without avoiding the attempt of drawing considerations which, starting from the specific case of art collecting in Salento, then go beyond its boundaries.

According to Lorenzo Madaro, co-curator of the exhibition: ‘With A Room with a View. Italian and International Art in private collections in Salento (1963-2015) we have conceived an exploration of contemporary art collecting in Salento as a passage through a complex cultural landscape, where the works house biographies of the gaze, encounters, loyalties and insights that have developed over time. In a region lacking a structured art scene, with no stable network of galleries, museums, production spaces and critical platforms, private collections become particularly significant: they reveal independent choices, desires, knowledge and silent forms of cultural responsibility. Displaying these works to the Biscozzi | Rimbaud Foundation means moving them from the domestic sphere to a public viewing space, where a private collection can become a shared history. Figures such as Carla Accardi, Stefano Arienti, Gabriele Basilico, Joseph Beuys, Luigi Ghirri, Peter Halley, Jannis Kounellis, Nunzio, Mimmo Paladino and Ettore Spalletti form a changing constellation, through which Salento reveals itself as a place of arrival, preservation and reinterpretation of certain trajectories in Italian and international art over recent decades.

The exhibition is accompanied by atrilingual catalogue (Italian, French and English), edited by Dario Cimorelli Editore, containing an introduction text by Dominique Rimbaud, the essays by the curators Paolo Bolpagni and Lorenzo Madaro and the biographies by Giuseppe Graziano.