CapriReview_30_a.20100708104435.pdf

AMELIOEbullient and unconventional, LucioAmelio was a brilliant and enlightenedart gallery director. He lived in severaldifferent houses on Capri where hehosted artists, critics and museumcurators from around the worldby Francesco Durantenell’incanto di una continua invenzione. Laleggenda vuole che lo stesso Lucio disseminassenel giardino gli strani reperti che poiBeuys ritrovava e riutilizzava per il suo lavoro.Ed è proprio in quel giardino che, nell’assolata“controra” di un’estate dei primianni Ottanta, l’aria ferma venne squarciatadal grido disperato di Amelio: «Il gatto si èmangiato un milione di dollari!».Che cosa era successo? Semplicemente cheper l’appunto un gatto aveva fatto razzia diuna serie di lische di pesce che, accura-▼DA “OMAGGIO A LUCIO AMELIO” - MAZZOTTA ED.Of all the art gallery directors, dealers andpromoters in Europe, Lucio Amelio wasone of the most inspired; the story of histime in Capri is really the story of his longrelationship of friendship and loyalty with one ofthe greatest artists of the end of the twentiethcentury, the German Joseph Beuys. In fact, youcould say that if it hadn’t been for Beuys’s needto satisfy his curiosity about the island, whicharoused in him mythical echoes and obliqueinspirations, perhaps Amelio would not haveestablished such a fertile relationship with Capri,that was to last a quarter of a century. Throughhis German friend, Capri soon became forAmelio, too, a place of fascinating beauty, able tonurture ideas and initiatives that were some ofthe most interesting of the last period of his life.Lucio settled in Capri more or less definitively in1971. In that year, together with his art gallerypartner, the Neapolitan Pasquale Trisorio, herented Villa Orlandi, a strikingly beautiful oldhouse hidden away among the alleys that windaround the church complex in Piazza San Nicola,in Anacapri. The summer before, Amelio had infact met Beuys in the pavilions of Documenta, theart fair in Kassel, and a friendship hadimmediately sprung up between the two of themwhich was destined to last through time. Ameliorecognized in Beuys the high point ofcontemporary European research, the artist whowas best able to hold a dialogue with the greatartists of American Pop Art who were dominatingthe world scene at the time. Amelio was then stillan emerging art gallery director, with a strongdesire to make the definitive leap into theinternational elite. He realized that Beuys couldbe the turning point for him, and from thatmoment on he followed the evolution of theartist’s career with a devoted constancy, perhapsalready anticipating the culmination of thatcareer which was to come in 1980, in Naples,when, amid unprecedented critical and mediaattention, Amelio managed to organize theencounter between Beuys and Andy Warhol in theSibilla Cumana cave.But to return to 1971, Beuys came to Villa Orlandiin the summer of that year and it was here, duringa very productive holiday, that he produced theworks that were to be displayed at his first bigexhibition in Italy, “La rivoluzione siamo noi”(“We are the revolution”). It was at this▼63