Collector, publisher, patron - Egidio Marzona did a lot for art in the course of his life and the SPK owes him a priceless treasure trove of Minimal Art, Conceptual Art, Arte Povera and art books. Marzona has now died in Berlin at the age of 82. Our author Louis Killisch recalls a memorable visit to the collector's house.
Autumn 2024, a villa in Berlin's Westend district. Behind the door: the famous collector Egidio Marzona. In front of it: a somewhat agitated editor who was curious as to what to expect. Then a moment of relief when a friendly, agile older gentleman with a pipe in his hand opened the aforementioned gate into his private realm. He led us quickly into a stately living room. He was not to let go of his legendary accessory, the pipe, for the entire evening.
At first glance, the Marzona house looked like the home of an art collector: Books up to the ceiling and, of course, lots of art - "although there could be more," as Marzona emphasised at the time. But due to break-ins, the police had advised him not to display it too prominently. The atmosphere was very friendly. Marzona was humorous, interested and kept livening things up with anecdotes. He mischievously presented a whole basket full of pipes, always ready to hand next to the sofa.
He was also very proud of his Lissitzky chair, having himself photographed on it by the photographer and commenting "there are only five of these left in the world!" In general, he raved a lot about all the artists and collectors he had met over the course of his long collecting career and with whom he had deep friendships. He was bursting with energy and enthusiasm - interrupted only by deep puffs on his ever-present pipe.
What fascinated Egidio Marzona was his accessibility and almost youthful enthusiasm for his favourite projects: berlin modern, the Archive of the Avant-Garde in Dresden, his sculpture park in Friuli, Italy, and the Saaleck Design Academy. The latter, it seemed, was particularly close to his heart at the time. In 2018, he acquired the former Saaleck workshops of the National Socialist racial ideologue, Bauhaus hater and architect Paul Schultze-Naumburg, just as they were threatening to degenerate into a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis. "I am a political person," he emphasised. With his Design Akademie Saaleck (DAS) as an international place of study, he wanted to set an example of cosmopolitanism. That's why his commitment in Dresden was so important to him at a time "when Pegida was raging on the streets there".
So here was a man who came from privileged circumstances (his father owned a concrete factory), but was very aware of this and derived a social mission and responsibility from it. His aunt's friend, a Romanian from Constantin Brâncuși's circle, sparked his interest in art and ultimately his passion for collecting. This, as became clear in the conversation, was always linked to the desire to allow society to participate in all of this: be it the sculpture park ("There is no fence, you can visit the park 24/7 - and yet there has never been any vandalism."), as a collective research centre with the archive of the avant-garde modelled on the American Getty Institute or his numerous contributions to the facilities of the SPK, which should also find an important place in berlin modern .
Marzona's legacy in the SPK
With the help of Egidio Marzona, it has been possible to close the considerable gaps in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin's collection of art from the sixties and seventies. Between 2002 and 2014, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation took over his collection of more than 600 works of art and 40,000 archival documents on Minimal Art, Conceptual Art and Arte Povera (partly as a purchase and partly as a donation). It is currently housed in the Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Kupferstichkabinett and the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin and is to become part of berlin modern, which is currently under construction. In 2025, Egidio Marzona donated 22 rare books of conceptual art from the 1960s designed by artists to the SPK Art Library.
Visualisation of the berlin modern, 2024 © Herzog & de Meuron
Marzona thus stood in contrast to the proverbial tech-bro billionaire of the 21st century: no blind collecting mania with the aim of self-enrichment, no sealing off and isolating himself from the social superstructure. No, it was a democratic form of patronage, which is all the more urgently needed in times of social crisis. In his memory, it is to be hoped that the many seeds he sowed in over 50 years of collecting will continue to sprout and flourish.
