Confiscated art on display at the Royal Palace of Milan

From December 3, 2024 to January 26, 2025, the rooms of Milan ’s Palazzo Reale will host SalvArti. From Confiscations to Public Collections, an exhibition that returns to the public a series of contemporary artworks, including paintings, graphics, and sculptures by artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Mario Sironi, Lucio Fontana, Massimo Campigli, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, Mario Schifano, Robert Rauschenberg, Christo, and others, from confiscations made by public authorities to the organized underworld. The exhibition is part of the Art for the Culture of Legality project, curated by the General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture, the National Agency for Seized and Confiscated Assets from Organized Crime (ANBSC), the City of Milan and the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior. Palazzo Reale thus hosts an exhibition of great cultural and social significance that aims to emphasize and reaffirm, especially among the younger generations, the fundamental value of legality.

The Milan exhibition is the second stage of an itinerary that opened with a preview from Oct. 16 to Nov. 21, 2024 at the Hendrick Christian Andersen Museum in Rome, and will close at the Palazzo della Cultura in Reggio Calabria, from Feb. 8 to April 27, 2025. In addition to presenting a cultural heritage that has largely remained inaccessible to the community, the initiative highlights the role and commitment of the institutions involved in the long and virtuous process that was necessary to recover them and to verify their authenticity and cultural interest. The more than 80 works that make up the exhibition itinerary, arranged chronologically and thematically, come from two different processes. The first stemmed from two cross-investigations, carried out by the R.O.S. of the Carabinieri and the Nucleo di Polizia Valutaria of the Guardia di Finanza, for a maxi-tax fraud linked to an international money-laundering network. The second, is the result of a confiscation against a person, fully inserted in the organized crime circuit and permanently engaged in illicit economic activities.

The exhibition allows us to trace the developments of art from the first half of the 20th century to the early 2000s, particularly the evolution of expressive languages and artistic currents of the time. Among these, one encounters the Novecento group with Mario Sironi(Abstract Composition - Urban Scene with Carriage, Multiplication II, first half of the 20th century), Metaphysics with authors such as Giorgio de Chirico(Piazza d’Italia, first half of the 20th century), and Carlo Carrà(Hut on the shore, 1955), the Transavanguardia of Sandro Chia(Ossa fossa cassa, 1990; Cupid, 1996), Enzo Cucchi(Autostrada del Pensiero, 1997), Mimmo Paladino and the New Roman School with Bruno Ceccobelli, Piero Pizzi Cannella, Gianni Dessì, and Nunzio Di Stefano, along with experiences, such as geometric and informal abstractionism, Keith Haring’s mural art (Kh mural, 1989), Christo’s land art, and the artist’s book genre, such as Pier Paolo Calzolari’s Cantata Bluia Libro dore.

A number of sculptural works are also on display: alongside the small bronze by Arnaldo Pomodoro(Disco, 1986/2003), an artist of international renown for monumental public art, more contemporary experiments are proposed, such as the works by Michele Savini(Anello, 2008; Coniglio, 2009) made with unusual materials such as chewing gum. After the exhibitions in Milan and Reggio Calabria, the first group of works, from a confiscation that became final in 2018, will be handed over to several MiC museum institutions selected by Director General of Museums Massimo Osanna throughout the country: in Milan (Pinacoteca di Brera - Palazzo Citterio), Rome (National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Civilizations and Central Institute for Graphics), Naples (Castel Sant’Elmo and Museo del Novecento) and Cosenza (National Gallery of Cosenza). The second group of 22 works will remain in Reggio Calabria, at the Palazzo della Cultura “P. Crupi,” where, since 2016, more than 100 works of art, all part of a single confiscation carried out by the Court of Reggio Calabria in 2015 and entrusted by the MiC Regional Secretariat for Calabria to the Metropolitan City, have been permanently on display.

Organizing Committee: General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture; ANBSC-National Agency for the Administration and Destination of Properties Seized and Confiscated from Organized Crime; Municipality of Milan - Directorate for Culture - Exhibitions and Scientific Museums Area; Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria - Palazzo della Cultura “Pasquino Crupi.” Scientific Committee: Andrea Viliani (director of the Museum of Civilizations, Ministry of Culture); Valeria Di Giuseppe Di Paolo (art historian official of the General Directorate of Museums, Ministry of Culture); Domenico Piraina (Culture Director and Director Area Exhibitions and Scientific Museums, City of Milan); Gianfranco Maraniello (Director Area Museums of Modern and Contemporary Art, City of Milan); Domenico Michele Surace (Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts of Reggio Calabria).

An Electa Editore catalog accompanies the exhibition. Free admission. Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Thursday 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Confiscated art on display at the Royal Palace of Milan

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