Fabio Sargentini's Casa Ulivo: A Gallery Built Around an Ancient Olive Tree

Italian gallerist Fabio Sargentini, founder of the legendary L'Attico gallery in Rome, has created a new exhibition space called Casa Ulivo in Vignaie, a hamlet of Piegaro in the province of Perugia. The structure is built around a centuries-old olive tree that Sargentini and actress Elsa Agalbato discovered trapped under sheets of metal and asbestos, yet still alive with green leaves. They freed the tree and built a hut around it, transforming the natural masterpiece into an artwork. Sargentini draws a conceptual line from Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades (industrial objects) to Jannis Kounellis's 1968 installation of twelve horses in his gallery, which equated nature with art. He contrasts his project with Maurizio Cattelan's olive tree installation at Manifesta 2 in Luxembourg, noting that his tree remains rooted in the ground while the hut selects and distinguishes it from surrounding olive trees. Inside the hut are benches, envisioned as a utopian space for peace negotiations. Casa Ulivo opens to the public on August 26, 2022, by appointment. Sargentini leaves open the possibility of future artist interventions.