Fondazione La Raia – arte cultura territorio was founded in 2013 by Giorgio Rossi Cairo and the art dealer Irene Crocco. Directed since January 2017 by Ilaria Bonacossa, its scientific committee is made up of Flavio Albanese, Marco Galateri di Genola, Vicente Todolì, Stefano Baia Curioni and James Bradburne.

The Foundation, honoured with the special mention “Fondazione d’impresa” of the Cultura + Impresa award, promotes a critical reflection on the landscape on a national level, through contributions that cover several fields of study.

Artists, philosophers, landscape painters, photographers and architects are invited to experience the landscape’s different elements through contributions and artworks that offer new knowledge opportunities and new identities. The Fondazione’s first initiative was the project Nel Paesaggio – conceived by Irene Crocco and curated by Matilde Marzotto Caotorta – that set the Fondazione’s guidelines.

Artist Remo Salvadori was the first to watch through art lenses this territory from an artist’s perspective, leading to three permanent works: Nel momento, a vertical installation made of sixteen tin elements placed on the manor’s Southern facade, Continuo infinito presente, a continuous ring made of steel cables created on the inauguration day, and Il sabato piantare il cipresso…, Salvadori’s fourth garden, made of marble, water and plants, on the trails that connects the wine cellar to Locanda La Raia.

In September 2014 a new permanent work, OUSSSER, was unveiled: it’s an enamel wall painting created by Korean artist Koo Jeong A. at Borgo Merlassino, inside the estate.

In 2015 the Fondazione collaborated with the German artist Michael Beutler, sponsoring his work for the Venice Biennale of 2017 and welcoming BALES 2014/2017 a work consisting of colored plastic bales that can be seen from the Gavi road near Locanda La Raia

In 2018 Palazzo delle Api, a site-specific work in Luserna stone by Adrien Missika was presented.

In May 2019 Fondazione La Raia, in collaboration with the Piedmont Museum Center and Forte di Gavi, promoted and organized the exhibition Il Corsaro Nero e la vendetta del Gavi by Francesco Jodice. For one year the artist took pictures of the architecture, landscapes, monuments and wine cellars, going through the local stories told in dialect and the protagonists of the history of Gavi and Novi Ligure. This was a new and important step towards a deeper knowledge of the landscape in its complexity, thanks to the ability of the artists to formulate new visions and questions.

That same year Fondazione La Raia produced BIOMEGA Multiverso: an exhibition by Cosimo Veneziano, at Tenuta Cucco, a property of the Rossi Cairo family at Serralunga d’Alba. The project focused on the use of biotechnologies in the food sector, to reflect on the purchasing procedures of consumers, studied in relation to the principles of neuromarketing.

In 2021 Michael Beutler has returned to La Raia, creating Oak Barrel Baroque, a small shelter shaped as a votive temple built in wooden beams and staves from barriques at the end of their life cycle. The shape of the work suggests the architecture of Palladio and the churches on the squares of Italian towns, reproportioned in a single building and placed in an unexpected context.

In 2023 a new work, Inventory by Tami Izko, was inaugurated: the biodiversity of La Raia inspired the creation of this chamber of wonders inside a natural cave where 32 porcelain works, natural casts and manual labor objects are enshrined. 

The latest work commissioned by the Foundation is Eutierra, by Teresa Giannico. After travelling and taking pictures of the landscape of La Raia, Giannico portrayed it drawing from the images and superimposing the sources of the different levels, through a strictly personal process, close to the memory and perception of that moment.

La Raia continues to be the a meeting place for discussions on the landscape, fostering a new perception of the territory in which we live.