Archivio Ala contains documentation of fifty years of activity (1964-2014) of the gallerist Salvatore Ala. He was a curious, independent spirit, who made his galleries into workshops in which he provided passionate support for artists. Archivio Ala is listed by the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendence of Lombardy for its outstanding historical value and importance in the field of contemporary art.

Salvatore Ala, patron of the arts and gallerist, established a fertile dialogue on equal footing between Europe and the United States, in which he was able to present the works of many artists well ahead of their subsequent and widespread renown. His initial approach to art came in 1964, through Lucio Fontana. This marked the beginning of a project that involved travel throughout Italy to promote the artist’s works. During these explorations Ala came into contact with other developments in that period, including the work of Piero Manzoni and Mimmo Rotella; Emilio Vedova, in Venice; Alberto Burri and the new generation in Rome.

He also began to travel outside Italy, around Europe: Paris, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, meeting artists like Gerhard Richter, Gilbert & George, Daniel Buren.

In the 1970s his focus expanded to include New York, where he began to acquire works by Agnes Martin, Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and Morris Louis, bringing them to Italy and raising awareness of their importance among collectors.

In 1974 Galleria Salvatore Ala opened its doors in Milan, with the first exhibitions in Europe by Joel Shapiro, followed by a show featuring Agnes Martin; in between, the gallery hosted events by Robert Wilson and his team, making his debut in Italy. The exchange between Milan and New York intensified, catching the initial moment of the emerging phenomena of Minimalism and Conceptual Art, in the works of Dan Flavin, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold,  Laurence Weiner, Mel Bochner, Dorothea Rockburne, Richard Tuttle, Channa Horwitz, Dan Graham, Doug Wheeler, Eric Orr, Douglas Huebler, and John Baldessari. The focus extended to the entire “underground” culture of music, theater, dance, performance art and filmmaking (Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, Lucinda Childs, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Charlemagne Palestine). At the same time, the gallery investigated the area of Post-Minimalism with Jene Highstein, Barbara Munger, Mary Miss, Joel Fisher, Susan Harris, Stephen Rosenthal, Richard Nonas, and many others.

The alternating initiatives on these various disciplines continued until the 1980s, when all these practices began to be recognized by public institutions, as in the case of the performance by Robert Wilson at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

In 1975 the relationship with Arte Povera began, in an exhibition by Michelangelo Pistoletto, and it continued in the years to follow in interactions with various artists: Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Luciano Fabro, Giovanni Anselmo, Giuseppe Penone, Gilberto Zorio, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz and Pierpaolo Calzolari.

In the second half of the 1970s came the first exhibition by Wolfgang Laib, Gordon Matta-Clark, Rebecca Horn and Vito Acconci in the facility in Milan, which also hosted the first exhibition in Italy by Anselm Kiefer (1981).

In 1979 the Salvatore Ala Gallery in New York was opened with an exhibition by Jannis Kounellis, and for the first time a program of interchange of Italian and American artists took form between the two galleries in Milan and New York.

In the early 1980s Ala began to investigate young English sculpture: Antony Gormley, Eric Bainbridge, Alison Wilding, and others; in New York he began to collaborate with Keith Haring and the so-called Graffiti movement, leading to the production in Milan of the first group show of these artists in Italy (Keith Haring, Ronnie Cutrone, Kenny Scharf and James Brown) in 1983, followed by Keith Haring’s first solo exhibition in Milan in 1984.

In 1995 the second gallery, opened in 1988 in SoHo, New York City, was closed, after presenting museum-grade exhibitions of great international impact, including Field by Antony Gormley (winner of the Turner Prize in London in 1994), Pino Pascali, Alberto Burri, Emilio Vedova, Vincenzo Agnetti, Carla Accardi, Leoncillo, Alighiero Boetti, and the show featuring international artists of the Fluxus movement.

Starting in 1997, Salvatore Ala returned to his role as a protagonist of the art scene in Milan, with Galleria Salvatore + Caroline Ala, located on Via Monte di Pietà. The programming began with seven solo exhibitions, the first of which was by the German artist Günther Förg titled Facciate nere, finestre bianche. With the advent of the European Union, Salvatore Ala reflected this new reality by presenting exhibitions by renowned and rising artists from a European context: Christiane Löhr, Ralph Müller, Osmar Osten, Bärbel Schulte Kellinghaus, Martin Städeli and Kent Iwemyr. These shows alternated with retrospectives on Emilio Vedova, Mario Merz, Turi Simeti, Antony Gormley, Eric Bainbridge.

The activity with the gallery came to an end in 2011, leading to the creation of Archivio Ala with the aim of documenting the coherent and ground-breaking project of international importance carried out across 50 years of work and research. Galleria Salvatore Ala always stood out for its rigorous focus on conservation of archival materials pertaining to its activities.

Archivio Ala contains a collection of over 230 exhibitions and performances documented on video, over 10,000 black+white and color photographs, slides, digital images, publications and press coverage, with over 20 linear meters of printed matter, including correspondence with national and international artists, curators and institutions such as museums, biennials and foundations. The existing material covers the period from 1974 to 2011 and is available to scholars for reference.

Part of this historical archive can now also be viewed online, to enable the public, students and scholars to explore, examine and appreciate its value. Researchers are encouraged to contact Archivio Ala directly for access to the materials.