Cristiana Perrella is the new director of the MACRO in Rome

MACRO - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma has a new director: she is Cristiana Perrella, chosen after weeks of evaluations and one among no less than 44 applications. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and Culture Councillor Massimiliano Smeriglio made the appointment of Cristiana Perrella official during a press conference, flanked by the President of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, Marco Delogu. Perrella takes over from Luca Lo Pinto(his end-of-term interview here).

Perrella’s choice comes at the end of a lengthy selection process coordinated byAzienda Speciale Palaexpo, which established a committee of experts in the field. The evaluation group consisted of Federica Pirani, director of the Heritage Directorate for Historic Villas of the Capitoline Superintendency; Laura Iamurri, professor of Contemporary Art History at Roma Tre University; Carla Subrizi, professor of Contemporary Art History at La Sapienza University; Daniela Lancioni, senior curator of Palaexpo; and Fabio Merosi, general manager of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo.

Cristiana Perrella was identified from a substantial shortlist of candidates. The selection was then reduced to a few names: Johanne Affricot and Lucrezia Cippitelli, Maria Alicata, Cecilia Canziani and Ilaria Gianni, Annamaria Cestelli Guidi and Lorenzo Romito, and Florence Derieux. A high-level competition that testifies to the importance of MACRO’s direction and the institution’s cultural weight in the Italian and international art scene.

Who is Cristiana Perrella

Currently a professor of management and economics of the arts and cultural institutions at San Raffaele University in Milan, Perrella directed the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato from 2018 to 2021, contributing significantly to the museum’s growth and artistic programming.

His career path is characterized by strong ties to the contemporary art world, both in the curatorial field and in the management of cultural institutions. From 1998 to 2008 she led the Contemporary Arts Program at the British School at Rome, an experience that allowed her to come into contact with artists and institutions of international standing.

She founded and directed SACS - Sportello Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia (Contemporary Art Desk of Sicily) for the RISO Museum in Palermo between 2007 and 2009 and curated the Art and Science project of the Marino Golinelli Foundation in Bologna for almost ten years, from 2009 to 2018. Throughout her career, she has worked with major national and international institutions such as MAXXI in Rome, the Bienal de Valencia, the IKSV in Istanbul, and the Fondazione Prada in Milan, contributing to projects of great resonance. In 2023, she was curator of the third edition of PANORAMA L’AQUILA, a traveling diffuse exhibition organized by ITALICS, an event that was highly successful in the art sector. Since 2022 she has been artistic director of the Milan Design Film Festival, demonstrating a cross-cultural interest in the visual arts and their dialogue with other disciplines. In addition, in 2025 she will be program curator of Conciliazione 5, the new exhibition space of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, which will be inaugurated on the occasion of the Jubilee in Rome.

The statements

“For the direction of the Macro,” says Mayor Gualtieri, “a professional profile of great experience has been chosen. Cristiana Perrella has a resume of great depth that was considered the most convincing for the future of a structure that is very important to us. We believe that the Macro has enormous potential that we would like to see fully deployed in a major center dedicated to contemporary art and creativity, capable of building exhibition routes, organizing both temporary and thematic exhibitions, offering full accessibility and ensuring a strong link with the city and its territory. This is the mission that we have given ourselves and that we entrust to the new director. Thanks to Luca Lo Pinto for his valuable work over the years.”

“I am very pleased with the work done in great harmony with Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and with the CDA of Palaexpo for the choice of this appointment,” says Massimiliano Smeriglio, councillor for culture of Roma Capitale. “In less than a month, from the moment the shortlist of candidates was selected, we made this decision after a careful study of the curricula, all of which were of the highest profile, and after an analysis of the projects presented. We are also happy that the choice fell on a woman, which is also a source of satisfaction for us. Cristiana Perrella has a profile particularly suited for this position, a great deal of national and international experience and a vision in line with our desire to strengthen contemporary art in Rome. We will work in close collaboration with MACRO, Palazzo Esposizioni, Mattatoio, and Museo delle Periferie. I wish good work to Cristiana Perrella and MACRO.”

“Extreme satisfaction,” says Marco Delogu, president of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, “for this nomination that took place in the highest criterion of transparency thanks to the work of a very authoritative Commission in which I did not want to enter so as not to overlap my role as president of Palaexpo with that of examiner. The applications received were numerous and all of the highest profile and it is for this reason that there were delays. I am in total agreement withMayor Roberto Gualtieri and Councillor for Culture Massimiliano Smeriglioon the choice of appointment to Dr. Cristiana Perrella. I believe that the MACRO will restart in an open and strong way, we start as early as May 27 with the Festival of Academies and Institutes of Foreign Culture now in its third edition with the curatorship entrusted to Saverio Verini. We will work closely with Palazzo Esposizioni, MACRO, Museo delle Periferie and Mattatoio.”

“I am very happy to return to the direction of a museum and in particular, to do so in Rome, which is my city,” says Cristiana Perrella. “Cultural institutions, today more than ever, can play an important role, that of expanding thought, of posing questions, of articulating a critical discourse that helps to interpret the central issues of our time, offering, thanks to the arts and artists, unprecedented and multifaceted perspectives. I have the good fortune, thanks to the work of Luca LoPinto who preceded me and his entire team, to arrive at a museum that has already operated in this sense, with an uncommon coherence and vision, building a community around it and at the same time acquiring an international positioning. It is my intention to work as much as possible in continuity with what has been achieved in the past five years and to make the foundations laid so far the premise for a museum that is both welcoming and radical, generous and cutting-edge, and that is strongly oriented toward making contemporary art meaningful and close to as broad an audience as possible.”

Cristiana Perrella is the new director of the MACRO in Rome

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