MAXXI opens Giacomo Balla's futurist house to the public for the first time

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Giacomo Balla’s birth, MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome is celebrating the celebrated Futurist artist with a double project: the opening to the public for the first time of his Futurist house on Via Oslavia in Rome and an exhibition at the museum venue that aims to highlight the artist’s contemporaneity.

The entire project Casa Balla. From the House to the Universe and Back, curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, director of MAXXI Arte, and Domitilla Dardi, MAXXI’s curator for Design, is taking place in two stages and will run until Nov. 21, 2021: the exhibition at MAXXI opens on June 17, while the house on Via Oslavia will be open to visitors on weekends starting Friday, June 25 (reservations required at www.maxxi.art).

The project is produced and realized by MAXXI in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio, with the support of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and the contribution of Banca d’Italia and sponsors Laura Biagiotti, Mastercard and Cassina.

"Casa Balla. From theHouse to the Universe and Back is an extraordinary project, as extraordinary is the virtuous collaboration between different public institutions and private partners that have made it possible," said Giovanna Melandri, President Fondazione MAXXI. “It is a total project, as total was the great Futurist master’s idea of art. Balla’s apartment in the heart of Rome’s Della Vittoria district, which opens to the public for the first time, enhances his kaleidoscopic and experimental universe. A 360-degree vision of art that is surprisingly relevant and inspiring for today’s creative communities. You will discover it in the spaces on Via Oslavia and find it in the visions of contemporary artists on display in MAXXI’s iconic Gallery 5 in dialogue with works by Balla.”

Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, MAXXI Arte director and curator of the project, said,"Casa Balla. From theHouse to the Universe and Back is an important new stage in MAXXI’s great work aimed at the enhancement and reinterpretation of contemporary art historical heritage. Giacomo Balla’s house, after thirty years of closure, is finally coming back to light. The house with its decorations, furniture, works of art expresses in every form the artist’s personality and represents one of his greatest masterpieces. Through the reopening of the Futurist Master’s home, we recover a part of our DNA, one of the greatest stories of 20th century art that forever changed the way of making, conceiving and experiencing artistic practice. This exceptional event is complemented by the exhibition in MAXXI’s Gallery 5 where Italian and international artists and creatives open our gaze wide to a conception of present art that is the child of the lesson of Balla and Futurism, made up of continuous intersections between different languages and expressive techniques, a deep connection with everyday life, a constant challenge to the limits of traditional expressive categories."

“That envisioned by Balla and his daughters is a modernity that is very familiar to us today: it speaks of overcoming disciplinary barriers, of conceptual contaminations and admixtures, of coexistence between abstract and figurative language,” added Domitilla Dardi, curator of the project. “And above all of identification between art and life: living seamlessly with one’s art is what makes theirs a ”diffuse project“ that concerns paintings as much as everyday dishes, sculptures, furniture, but also the clothes they wore becoming themselves self-propelled works of art. It is no coincidence that the great designers of the 1970s had found their roots in this approach, and contemporaries are able with agility to continue its reflection, today that future has become our present.”

The Futurist house on Oslavia Street is the house where Balla lived and worked from 1929 until his death. It will be open to visitors from June 25 every weekend for more than five months; visits, prepared and conducted by MAXXI’s Education Office, will be staggered over several time slots and divided by groups of eight. Reservations are required at www.maxxi.art.
The master moved into the apartment on Via Oslavia in Rome with his wife Elisa and two daughters Luce and Elica, also painters, who lived there and kept it until the 1990s. Thanks to a long and careful work of reconnaissance, study and securing the property curated by MAXXI and the Special Superintendence of Rome, it was possible to set up the house and make it accessible to the public.

The exhibition at MAXXI displays tapestries, drawings, sketches, furniture, and furnishings originally part of Casa Balla, in dialogue with eight new productions by international contemporary architects, artists and designers. Never-before-seen works created for the occasion that reflect on the many suggestions of Casa Balla as a total work of art, bringing out the topicality of thought of the multifaceted artist, creating a spatio-temporal link between the 1930s house and the 21st century museum. Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, Carlo Benvenuto, Alex Cecchetti, Jim Lambie, Emiliano Maggi, Leonardo Sonnoli, Space Popular, and Cassina with Patricia Urquiola have been involved in investigating the suggestions of Casa Balla: their productions will meet some important originals by Giacomo Balla, coming from private collections, including those of Giacomo Balla’s heirs, and for the first time reunited here and accessible to the public. These include the door to the red Studiolo, drawings and studies for clothes, such as the one made for Luce, from the Biagiotti Cigna Foundation and the Laura and Lavinia Biagiotti Collection, which preserve a heritage of more than three hundred works by Balla, the main nucleus of which consists of works and studies on design and fashion and is the most important set of applied art in the world.

For more info: www.maxxi.art

MAXXI opens Giacomo Balla's futurist house to the public for the first time

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