Every year for the last 20 years the Tuscan wine producer Ornellaia has commissioned an artist to design an artwork and labels for one of its vintages, in an initiative it calls ‘Vendemmia d’Artista’. The artist interprets the character of a harvest (or vendemmia) through the lens of a single word, chosen by the estate’s winemaking team. The estate has chosen Vitalitá (or vitality) for its 2023 vintage, and Marina Abramović as the artist.
Each commission yields a series of labels for large-format bottles sold to support a cultural institution – in this case the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York. Previous artists who have taken part in Vendemmia d’Artista include Michelangelo Pistoletto, Joseph Kosuth and William Kentridge. For Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of Frescobaldi, Ornellaia’s parent group, the artists do something that no tasting note can. ‘A technical sheet can present the conditions of a vintage: the season, the climate, the vineyard work, the structure of the wine,’ he says. ‘But an artist can help us feel those conditions.’ Each artist, he notes, begins with the chosen word and ‘almost always reveals something in that word that we may not have fully seen ourselves.’
Abramović is an apt choice of artist. Few creative figures working today have explored duration and the nature of the performer/viewer relationship as she has. ‘In Marina Abramović’s performances, there is a powerful exchange of energy between her and the audience,’ Frescobaldi says. ‘Wine works in a similar way. It carries the energy of a place, a vintage and the people behind the bottle. It is there where the experience comes alive, in the encounter with the person who drinks it.’
When Abramović learned of the theme for the 2023 vintage, she tells me, she was compelled to do ‘something interactive; I am a performance artist after all.’ She explains, ‘I had to go to the source. We could not have wine without the grape. Similarly, I am the object and subject of my work. So I started by putting grapes around my head.’ For the 750ml bottle, Abramović has drawn herself as a contemporary Medusa. Her hair, in the form of vine branches heavy with grapes, transforms the mythical figure into a symbol of abundance and vital force.
For the 10 six-litre imperials she stuck with the Medusa theme but switched from drawing to photography. Here Abramović’s face is progressively covered by grapes until only an eye remains visible. ‘This is the wine looking at you,’ she says.
These are among the 14 lots that are being presented online at auction with Bonhams in Paris from 11–23 June. The top lot is a one-of-one salmanazar, nine litres of Ornellaia 2023 in a bottle signed by Abramović, estimated at €20,000–€40,000. It comes with a red wax candle inspired by her work Energy Hat; a signed 45 rpm vinyl record by Nino Rota; an instruction from Abramović to drink the wine slowly, with eyes closed, while listening to the music; and a dinner and overnight stay for six guests at the Ornellaia estate, complete with private tour. ‘We are in Italy, where the most famous movie was La Dolce Vita,’ she muses. ‘What can be better than drinking wine and listening to this music? This bottle can also keep the light.’
The proceeds will support ‘Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now’, an exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York that draws on the museum’s collection of Pop art and Pop-influenced work. Specifically, the money raised will fund the conservation of works in the exhibition. This is an important distinction. Philanthropy is growing in the wine industry, and increasingly winemakers are asked to support the kinds of cultural infrastructure that governments and charities are struggling to sustain alone. For Frescobaldi, this tallies with how his family has always thought about its work. ‘Philanthropy is not a recent decision,’ he says. ‘After 700 years of history, you understand that a family business is not only about what you produce but also about what you protect, support and pass on. Wine has always been connected to beauty, culture, land and a community that must be cared for. It belongs to a place but it also creates relationships with people, artists, collectors, institutions and patrons around the world. Why not bring them together around meaningful causes?’
Bonhams is taking bids for ‘Ornellaia “La Vitalità” Vendemmia d’Artista 2023’ until 23 June.
