The Barbara Paci Art Gallery was founded in 2003 in the historic center of Pietrasanta (Lucca), a town in Tuscany known internationally for its bronze foundries and marble workshops where sculptures by artists known all over the world have been made for centuries. Pietrasanta was also visited by great artists such as Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz and Marino Marini who lived and worked in Pietrasanta. Also for this reason the Gallery deals mainly with contemporary sculptors such as Aron Demetz, Javier Marin, Kan Yasuda, Fernando Botero, Novello Finotti and Massimiliano Pelletti. Besides dealing with painters such as Valerio Adami, Mimmo Paladino, Alessandro Busci, Massimo Giannoni, Giovanni Frangi and Andrea Collesano, the Gallery also offers photographers such as Aurelio Amendola, Rainer Elstermann and Roberto Kusterle. The choice of headquarters in Pietrasanta offers the Gallery visibility and direct contacts with artists and their ateliers from the interesting phase of creation in addition to collectors, critics, art dealers and art experts from all over the world and exclusively interested in contemporary art.
The Gallery began its exhibition activity in 2003 with a historical exhibition of unpublished drawings by the French artist Andrè Derain, coming from the homonymous Foundation in Paris. Over the years the Gallery has organized with its artists many solo and group exhibitions in institutional spaces, Italian and foreign museums as well as in its 2 exhibition spaces in Pietrasanta.
The summer of 2008 was dedicated to the exhibition with monumental works, entitled "De 3 en 3", by the Mexican artist Javier Marin organized and set up in Pietrasanta, in Piazza del Duomo and in the Sant'Agostino Complex (artist who participated twice in La Biennale di Venezia, he created an installation at Art Basel 2007 in Miami for the Bass Museum, and winner of the Beijing Biennale 2008). From 2008 to 2013 this monumental traveling exhibition of the Mexican artist, thanks to the great success gained in Pietrasanta, was hosted in many European cities: Rotonda di via Besana, Piazzetta Reale and Piazza del Teatro alla Scala - Milan (Italy); Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique and Magritte Museum, Place Royale, Place de l'Albertine - Brussels (Belgium); Esplanade Francois Andrè - La Baule (France); Place Metz, Place Guillaume II, Place des Martyrs, Luxembourg - (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg); Lange Voorhout, Pulchri studium Museum - The Hague; - Holland; Museo MACRO Testaccio, Piazza del Pincio, Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome (Italy). Another important collaboration between the gallery and institutional spaces was the solo exhibition "Toccare il tempo" by the Japanese artist Kan Yasuda, realized in 2011 in Turin in the Valentino Park and in Palazzo Ersel with monumental sculptures in bronze and marble.
In 2008, an exhibition of photographic works by the artist Agostino Rocco at the State Museum of Saint Cloud, Paris was realized. The exhibition was organized and promoted thanks to a synergistic collaboration between the Gallery and the Museum. It has been the purchaser of 18 photographic works whose theme is the contemporary reworking of male and female portraits of the French nobility dispersed or destroyed during the French Revolution. The first edition of each work remained the property of the Museum and was annexed to the state collection. In the Gallery itself in Pietrasanta, among others, we can mention the solo exhibition "Keimzeit" of the Italian sculptor Aron Demetz (artist who exhibited in 2009 in the Italian Pavilion at the 53 La Biennale di Venezia) realized in 2013 and then continued with the solo show of the same artist at the Hans Arp Museum in Cologne (Germany) in summer 2014. In 2020 the Gallery organized the exhibition "Looking forward to the past" by the artist Massimiliano Pelletti at the MARCA Musem in Catanzaro.
Barbara Paci was born in Venice on November 8, 1969 and at the age of five she moved to Viareggio (Lucca). She graduated from the Liceo Artistico Statale in Lucca and later graduated in Modern Literature with a historical-artistic address focused on Contemporary Art, at the University of Florence.
In 2021 she obtained the first level Master's degree in World Heritage Management and valorization of cultural assets and activities, at UNINT - University of International Studies of Rome. she has attended various institutional refresher courses on Cultural Heritage, among which we highlight: the Diploma of Recovery of Cultural Heritage (promoted and conducted jointly by the Superintendence of Artistic and Cultural Heritage of Pisa Friends of the Pisan Museums and Arma Dei Carabinieri), and the course for the creation of companies in the Artistic-Cultural sector, with the achievement of the third prize for the best project presented, promoted and conducted by the Chamber of Commerce and the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca and by the Superintendency of Artistic and Cultural Heritage of Pisa.
She is a professor of Art History at the High Schools and High Schools of the province of Lucca. Since 2003 she has been the owner of the homonymous Art Gallery with two locations in Pietrasanta (Lucca), with which she participates in Contemporary Art Fairs around the world such as Miami, New York, Palm Beach (USA), Mexico City ( Mexico), CapeTown (South Africa), Istanbul (Turkey), Kiev (Ukraine), London (UK), Lugano (Switzerland), Milan, Verona, (Italy). Over the years, valuable transversal entrepreneurial collaborations have been developed between the Gallery and the shipbuilding industry of excellence with brands such as Heesen Yacht (Holland), Azimut Benetti, Perini Navi, Rossi Navi, San Lorenzo Yachts (Italy), and with national and international banking institutions. international companies such as Gruppo Ersel Gestione di Patrimoni (Italy) and Banca PARIBAS (Luxembourg).
Barbara Paci has personally created with her own staff of collaborators, taking care of the conception and planning, the availability of sponsorships, the bureaucratic-administrative organization and the logistics (also relating to all the procedures concerning the international import and export regulations of cultural heritage) as well as the relationship with curators and museum directors, of public exhibitions and events of modern and contemporary art and culture in the following institutional spaces in collaboration with the Ministries, Embassies, Public Administrations and Museums of the relevant countries of origin:
Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique e Musée Magritte, Bruxelles, Belgium
Fondazione Den Haag Sculptuur, Ministero della Cultura, Den Haag, Netherland
Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Ministère Culture Communication, Saint Cloud State Museum - Paris, France
Monumental instalation in Place du Louvre, Paris, France
Museo of Palazzo Reale - Rotonda della Besana - Piazza del Duomo - Milan
MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome and Piazza del Pincio, Rome
MARCA Museum of Arts of Catanzaro, Catanzaro
MUDEC Museum of Culture, Milan
Public exhibition for the city of Turin: public parc of Valentino, Turin
Public exhibition for the city of Pietrasanta - Assessorato alla Cultura, Piazza Duomo e chiesa di Sant’Agostino - Pietrasanta (Lucca)
Tuscan Sun Festival, City of Cortona - Assessorato alla Cultura, Palazzo Casali Museum- Cortona (Arezzo)
Public exhibition for the city of La Baule, Bretagne, France
Public exhibition for the city of Luxembourg - Place des Martyrs - Place Guillaume II - Luxembourg
Italian Institute of Culture - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Finally Barbara Paci has personally collaborated with Italian and foreign public institutions and museums including:
Museo Piaggio “Giovanni Alberto Agnelli” – Pontedera - Pisa
Fondazione Festival Pucciniano - Torre del Lago Giacomo Puccini (Lucca)
Fondazione Cerratelli - San Giuliano Terme - Pisa
Civic Museum “Giovanni Fattori” - Livorno
Fondazione C.L.Ragghianti - Lucca - Region Tuscany
