Milan, the Museo del Novecento gets a makeover: new layouts inaugurated

Inauguration time for the Museo del Novecento in Milan, which today showed for the first time the new layouts of the rooms dedicated to Marino Marini and those on art from the 1960s to the 1980s (located at the end of the museum itinerary: for the occasion, 122 new works and 56 new artists were also added), as well as the new educational workshop, opened toward the museum entrance, at the base of the spiral staircase that leads to the upper floors, those from where the itinerary begins.

The new layout has been given the title Novecento: New Paths, and the intent is to reinterpret the museum’s own holdings as part of a general program of renovation that will end in 2020, when the Museo del Novecento will celebrate its 10th year of operation. The management and scientific committee of the Museo del Novecento, which are responsible for Novecento: Nuovi Percorsi, wanted to emphasize the new features of the museographic project conceived by architect Italo Rota for Marino Marini’s sculptures (which have a new location, allowing the art of the Tuscan sculptor to be admired within the framework of a coherent chronological development), donated by the artist himself and his wife Mercedes Pedrazzini to the city of Milan between 1972 and 1986. The idea is also to propose a new reflection on Marino Marini’s production, with an installation that, also making use of a view of the city (and in particular of Piazzetta Reale), wants to emphasize the artist’s relationship with Milan.

On the other hand, as far as the display of the rooms of art from the 1960s to the 1980s is concerned, it too can be said to have been the subject of careful reflection on how to rethink it in order to propose a narrative of the twentieth century as a fertile ground for experimentation with languages and means, and to relaunch Italian art in a context of interaction with the international art scene, thanks also to the exhibition of the Bianca and Mario Bertolini Collection that was donated in 2015 to the City of Milan. So here the works of artists such as Mario Ceroli, Renato Mambor, Mario Schifano and Bepi Romagnoni are presented alongside works by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton, while another dialogue is established between Giulio Paolini’s monochrome surfaces and Sol Lewitt’s papers, and again between Giorgio Griffa and Daniel Buren. The first rooms of the itinerary are devoted to the optic-kinetic experiences and site-specific environments of Group T, then the path tackles the various declinations of painting, from Pop experiences to analytical and conceptual paintings. A monographic room is also dedicated to Turin-based artist Carol Rama, with the exhibition (for the first time in Milan) of Presagi di Birnam (1970), a work purchased by the Museum in 2012.

The new layout aims to emphasize precisely the importance ofconceptual art by dedicating space to Italian and international artists who implemented an important reflection on the photographic medium between the 1960s and the 1970s: particular mention is made of John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers, Jan Dibbets, Joseph Kosuth, Vincenzo Agnetti, Bruno Di Bello, Giuseppe Penone, Ugo La Pietra and Michele Zaza. Then there are rooms dedicated to Italian art, with an in-depth look at the expansion of the concept or sculpture from a three-dimensional object inhabiting space to the birth of installation, reaching out to touch on immaterial practices (such as performance). The new layout confirms the room dedicated to Luciano Fabro and addresses the theme ofinstallation (both from the point of view of languages and materials) with works by Giovanni Anselmo, Amalia Del Ponte, Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Fabio Mauri, Mario Merz, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio. The itinerary ends with an account of the experiences that, on the threshold of the 1980s, proposed a return to subjectivity and narrative, through the works of Nunzio Di Stefano, Marco Gastini, Paolo Icaro, Mimmo Paladino, and Giuseppe Spagnulo.

For more information you can visit the Museo del Novecento website.

Milan, the Museo del Novecento gets a makeover: new layouts inaugurated

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