EVOO Meets Art at Frieze Masters

“This project has been cre­ated to high­light the age-old con­nec­tion between agri­cul­ture and art, which nowa­days regains its social rel­e­vance,” said Domitilla Calamai.

Not only is Calamai an olive oil som­me­lier and pro­ducer of the award-win­ning Osti olive oil, she is also writer of essays and nov­els like Blame it on Fidel, which was made into a movie.

We met her to talk about an exclu­sive event where extra vir­gin olive oil will meet art in one of the world’s most influ­en­tial con­tem­po­rary art fairs.

Frieze Masters will host its Culture of Italian Olive Oil event, fea­tur­ing Italian pro­duc­ers who are pas­sion­ate about art and agri­cul­ture in equal mea­sure.

On October, 7 at Locanda Locatelli, the Italian restau­rant in London awarded a Michelin star, a tast­ing of Italian extra vir­gin olive oils will under­score the close rela­tion­ship between art and the world of agri­cul­ture.

Witnesses to this deep con­nec­tion will be six­teen Italian man­u­fac­tur­ers who are also col­lec­tors, artists, pub­lish­ers, writ­ers, archi­tects, polit­i­cal sci­en­tists, film­mak­ers and landown­ers.

They include: Domitilla Calamai and Mattia Falchetto Osti, Giovanni and Patricia Aldobrandini, Matteo Boetti, Valentina Bruschi, Giuseppe Catalano di Melilli, Anna Federici and Roberto D’Agostino, Nina zu Fürstenberg and Giancarlo Bosetti, Giuseppe Gallo and Cristina Leonardi Gallo, Noëma and Klio Kosuth, Piervittorio Leopardi and Livia Berlingeri Leopardi, Peter Sartogo and Martina Mondadori Sartogo, Laura Einaudi and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Remo and Sally Salvadori, Bernardo and Costanza Scammacca del Murgo, Oliviero Toscani, and the host, the Chef Giorgio Locatelli.

The event, curated by the inde­pen­dent cura­tor Cornelia Lauf, pro­poses a selec­tion of excel­lent prod­ucts that will be dis­closed and expounded by Calamai and by the olive oil som­me­lier, bio­dy­namic farmer and art col­lec­tor, Anna Federici. They will reveal the char­ac­ter­is­tics and his­tory of each pro­ducer, while intro­duc­ing the par­tic­i­pants to the secrets of a real tast­ing ses­sion, dur­ing which Murano glasses and ceram­ics made by artists, includ­ing Alan Belcher, Roberto Caracciolo, Manuel Gorkiewicz, Nicoletta Gualdi, Coralla Maiuri, Tristano di Robilant, will be used.

It will be a jour­ney across Italy, the coun­try with the largest num­ber of olive vari­eties, which their pecu­liar fla­vors and aro­mas. Producers share the com­mon mis­sion to pro­duce extra vir­gin olive oils of the high­est qual­ity, fol­low­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices, respect­ing and nur­tur­ing the ter­ri­tory, pre­serv­ing a unique bio­di­ver­sity in a mosaic where tra­di­tion and moder­nity coex­ist to enhance the beauty and unique­ness of Italian land­scapes.

Cornelia Lauf pro­posed the union between EVOO and art ​“to empha­size the close link between the mil­len­nial cul­ture of olive oil and the role of the pro­ducer, also a cul­tural pro­tag­o­nist.” All man­u­fac­tur­ers present at the event are, in fact, cul­tural fig­ures. Moreover, some adorn their labels with images cre­ated by artists like Alighiero Boetti, Emilio Corti, Giuseppe Gallo, William Kentridge, Joseph Kosuth, Ignazio Mortellaro, Remo Salvadori and oth­ers.

“The rela­tion­ship with our land may be the last fron­tier of con­tem­po­rary art,” the cura­to­r­ial pre­sen­ta­tion reads, and then it quotes Joseph Beuys, who declared that ​“the defense of nature is anthro­po­log­i­cal action.”

“In effect, we have the social com­mit­ment of tak­ing care of the world we live in,” Domitilla Calamai pointed out. ​“Managing my olive grove is a source of pride for me. At the core of the union between EVOO and art is the idea that art has also a func­tion use­ful to con­vey a mes­sage of care and qual­ity.”