The Agovino Collection, born from Fabio Agovino’s passion, is located in the historic Palazzo Sessa in the heart of Naples and is characterized by its focus on the present. It comprises around two hundred works, including painting, installation, video, sculpture, and photography. It presents its first exhibition in 2011, titled “Rising”, after a work by Jutta Koether, signifying the start of a collecting process aimed at experimentation and re-evaluation of its expressive potential, in search not of a goal but of dynamic combinations. On that occasion, Mexican artist Martin Soto Climent created the performance Impulsive Chorus, leading the way for artistic collaborations. In 2014, the exhibition “Dio c’è” (God is there) opened at the collection’s venue and in 2017 it officially opened to the public with “Frammenti di Paradiso” (Fragments of Paradise), in the splendid Church of San Giuseppe delle Scalze in Pontecorvo. Over the years the collection has established itself on the international scene and lends works to important museums and galleries, including the Moma in New York, the Madre in Naples, the Parasol Unit in London, the Art Gallery of Alberta (Canada), the Maxxi in Rome, and to international cultural institutions, such as the Triennale in Milan. In 2015 it supports the realization of James Beckett’s installation Negative Space: A Scenario Generator for Clandestine Building in Africa at the 56th Venice Biennale, as well as many other projects.
Research, archiving, curating and dialogue with the artists met over time are the main guidelines of the collection, which does not come from a precise idea but develops together with an evolution of personal experience. It reveals a line of coherence focused on projects and works that encourage a deep reflection on the present reality, through the capacity to go beyond the boundaries of artistic language to convey the idea of universality in the detail. The path of research and cultural promotion opens dialogues with the territory with exhibitions and meetings and proceeds by activating artist residency projects in the beautiful resort of Aquapetra Resort & Spa. Here in 2018 he presents the catalogue of the exhibition “Fragments of Paradise”, published by CURA.BOOKS, and makes temporary exhibitions in collaboration with galleries. In 2019, with the participation of Laveronica Gallery, Collezione Agovino promotes Marinella Senatore’s project The School of Narrative Dance, which stages an itinerant performance from Piazza dei Martiri to the courtyard of Palazzo Sessa, opening up new possibilities for dialogue between the city of Naples and the artists it weaves into its research.
Also in 2019, in collaboration with Sara Zanin’s gallery, it presents the exhibition Dead Nations: golden age version by Evgeny Antufiev in the church of San Giuseppe delle Scalze, achieving the Matronage of Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee / MADRE museum in Naples. After the suspension of activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Agovino Collection restarts its projects and in 2021 inaugurates three exhibitions: Claire Fontaine | Pasquarosa | Marinella Senatore at the Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes Museum; Mateusz Choróbski (Radomsko, 1987) and Namsal Siedlecki (Greenfield, 1986) at the Church of San Giuseppe delle Scalze in Pontecorvo; Antonio Della Corte at Palazzo Sessa. Collecting is a continuous experience of learning and questioning reality, it is a desiring practice, stretched between the past and the future, it is a gesture that does not end, because its meaning is in the movement created when a doorway is about to be crossed.