Pizzuti Collection announces two new partnerships and three exhibitions for the 2014 - 2015 season, building on the success of their inaugural year: NOW-ism: Abstraction Today, Ori Gersht’s Portraits and Campana Brothers.

“The art and artists in these new exhibitions are remarkable for their ability to transcend age, race, country and medium,” said Pizzuti Collection Director and Curator Rebecca Ibel, “They challenge us, inspire us and enlighten us. I’m looking forward to the dialogue and exchange they will provoke.”

NOW-ism: Abstraction Today (on view from September 6, 2014 – June 20, 2015) is a thought-provoking exhibition of twenty-first century painting, sculpture, video and furnishings representing the newest abstract work from today’s best artists. NOW-ism features international emerging stars like Sarah Cain, Diana Al-Hadid and Florian Meisenberg and established artists including Columbus’ own art star Ann Hamilton, Jim Hodges, Miami-based Teresita Fernández, Jason Middlebrook, Carrie Moyer and Pia Fries. The show will include more than 100 works spanning all three floors of the space.

Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art remarked, “The Pizzuti Collection is an extraordinary accomplishment and is the culmination of Ron and Ann’s long term commitment to contemporary art and discovering new artists. This singular collection, comprised of renowned masters and emerging talent, is a great gift to the local community and an exciting addition to the national and indeed international art landscape.”

Pizzuti Collection thanks the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the city of Columbus for their generous grant in support of the NOW-ism exhibition.

Ori Gersht: Portraits is a film series by the highly acclaimed Israeli-born, London-based artist. Over the course of Fall 2014, a series of three forceful video portraits will be on view in the Pizzuti Collection black box, each connecting moments of quiet contemplation with difficult histories and anguished realties. Ron and Ann Pizzuti have collected Ori Gersht’s work in depth over the last decade, but this focused show concentrates attention on only three films (each nearly 15 minutes in length), giving time to explore the stories and reflect on the history that inspired them. The Columbus Museum of Art will host a simultaneous show of Ori Gersht’s photography and other works on loan from Pizzuti Collection.

• Evaders, 2009 (on view September 5 – October 11) a poetic and heart-wrenching retelling of Walter Benjamin’s attempt to escape Nazi-occupied France.  

• Will You Dance For Me, 2011 (on view October 11 – November 15) portrays Yehudit Arnon, a Holocaust survivor and founder of one of the most important modern dance companies in Israel, and her defiance while at Auschwitz.

• The Offering, 2013 (on view November 18 – December 27) confronts the glamorous and treacherous world of bullfighting, its dazzling spectacle and often-gruesome outcomes.

“I’m very excited that this inaugural partnership between Columbus Museum of Art and the Pizzuti Collection is such a meaningful collaboration,” said CMA Executive Director Nannette V. Maciejunes. “Ron has been part of our Museum family for years and has always been a huge supporter of the arts community in Columbus. It’s been incredible to watch the launch of the Pizzuti Collection and  I’m looking forward to our ongoing partnership.”

“Ori Gersht’s work in photography and video combines exquisite beauty with violence and historical trauma,” said Tyler Cann, Associate Curator Contemporary Art for the Columbus Museum of Art, “It is deeply emotional, poetic, and yet, somehow, unsentimental. That’s an astonishing feat, and we are
delighted to present this complex and engaging work.”

Campana Brothers, Columbus’s first glimpse of work by the Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana is only the second solo exhibition of their work in the United States. The exhibition celebrates their innovative, outlandish and smart furnishings, including chairs made out of fuzzy stuffed animals and a couch formed by leather alligator dolls. Sometimes utilizing traditional techniques like hand-weaving and often using unexpected or repurposed materials, the brothers turn everyday things into puzzlingly beautiful objects.

In a new partnership with the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio the exhibition will begin its tour in Lancaster, opening there on October 25. Pizzuti Collection will exhibit Campana Brothers from February to June 2015.

Barbara Huntzinger, chair of the exhibition for the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, explained, “The Campanas' irresistibly eccentric furnishings, popular in South America and Europe and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, will bring their Brazilian exuberance to the Midwest for the first time this fall. These highly original, spirited and whimsical works will provide a striking visual contrast to the classic 1830s galleries of the Decorative Arts Center in Lancaster.”

Founded in 2011, Pizzuti Collection is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization presenting temporary exhibitions of contemporary art from the collection of Ron and Ann Pizzuti, along with a number of programs and events including lectures, artist talks and educational projects. Operating out of a renovated historic building in Columbus Ohio’s Short North Arts District, the Collection also maintains a resource library and sculpture garden. The Pizzuti Collection is open to the public Fridays and Saturdays from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm, during special events and by appointment. 

Pizzuti Collection
632 North Park Street
Columbus, Ohio 43215
614-280-4004
http://www.pizzuticollection.com