“This is the story of a cultural adventure with features very similar to a chivalric journey. The protagonists are two fearless young people from Lombardy with noble and generous hearts, close to those we have come to know in the pages of Ariosto, Cervantes, or Moderata Fonte. As in any self-respecting epic challenge, battles, and pitfalls await them along the way, but their hearts will always remain steadfast in their chests. Of course, adversaries and challenges will have different shapes and guises from past ones, but they will be no less devious or deceitful.
Our protagonists decide to open a bookshop in Italy, one of the least read countries in Europe1. Scornful of the danger, they also dedicate half of the space to contemporary art and proudly defy Italy’s suspicion and total indifference toward artists. Are these not the proper premises for an impossible undertaking or a current chivalric adventure?
At Spazio Gamma, Beatrice’s editorial soul and Stefano’s artistic soul ensure that the two disciplines always embrace, mix, distance, and respect each other. Literature teaches visual artists to fall in love with novels and essays and not to exploit books just for a few quotes in artworks like Vampires. Books should be experienced in their content, the pages’ smell, and the bindings’ feel. Contemporary art teaches the most avid readers, but occasional exhibition goers, that snobbish and rejecting boundaries break down with a resolute education of the gaze. The work of art, long before it is content, is emotion...”
